Liz Truss has stepped down as the UK prime minister after only six months in office, making her the shortest-serving PM in UK’s history.
Announcing her departure outside Number 10 Downing Street in London, Truss said she came into office at a time of “great economic and international instability”.
The country had been held back by low economic growth for too long, she said, and she was elected by her party with a “mandate to change this”.
Truss said her government delivered on energy bills and cutting national insurance, and had set out a vision for a “low tax high growth economy”.
“I recognize… given the situation I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” she added.
Truss said he had spoken to King Charles III to notify him about her resignation as the Conservative Party leader.
Her departure after 45 days in the office makes her the shortest-serving PM in UK history, according to the BBC.
Reports say a leadership election will be held and completed within a week.
Truss said she will remain as prime minister until a successor has been chosen.
Truss’s premiership has been in turmoil since her mini-budget last month, which rocked markets and was later scrapped by her new chancellor.
Appointed on Sept. 6, Truss was forced to sack her finance minister and closest political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, and abandon almost all her economic program after their plans for vast unfunded tax cuts crashed the pound and British bonds.
On Wednesday, she lost the second of the government’s four most senior ministers, faced laughter as she tried to defend her record to parliament, and saw her lawmakers openly quarrel over policy, deepening the sense of chaos at Westminster.
According to Reuters, new finance minister Hunt is now racing to find tens of billions of pounds of spending cuts to try to reassure investors and rebuild Britain’s fiscal reputation as the economy heads into recession and inflation runs at a 40-year high. He is due to deliver a new budget on Oct. 31.
