British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday. Truss, who is the country’s third female prime minister, became the shortest to serve in office with 44 days.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced her resignation from her post.
Truss, who held the shortest term in office as the prime minister in British history, just served for 44 days. Truss had apologized last week for the errors in economic policy but announced that she would not resign. However, the resignation of Interior Minister Suella Braverman, one of the senior members of the cabinet, made Truss’s quest for survival more difficult.
Speaking in front of Number 10 Downing Street, Truss stated that she had failed to fulfil the promises she made when she ran for the Conservative Party leadership and admitted that the party had lost faith in her.
With the announcement of Liz Truss’ resignation, the leadership election process began for the fourth time in four years within the ruling Conservative Party in the UK.
How did it get to this point?
Truss’ biggest promise during the election process was that she would make big tax cuts in response to rising inflation, economic recession and the energy crisis. Truss rejected the criticism that this policy would further fuel inflation, which had already risen to its highest level in 40 years.
The economic program, which included tax cuts of 45 billion pounds, announced by Truss on September 23, shocked the markets, causing the British pound and treasury bonds to crash. After harsh criticism of the economic plans, the government started to shift its economic policy.
Truss, unable to withstand public pressure, dismissed Kwasi Kwarteng from his position as Minister of Finance on October 14, and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt. Despite the cancellation of a large part of the program and changing the finance minister, the call for the resignation from the party deputies continued to increase.
Women were critical of Truss’s policies on gender
Women’s rights activists had protested that Liz Truss did not include a minister that focused on gender equality in the new cabinet and the fact that she appointed Nadim Zahawi as Minister for both Intergovernmental Affairs and Equality.
Although the spokesperson of the new prime minister, who previously served as Minister of Women and Equality, said that Zahawi’s role “involves women”, the opposition argued that removing the word “Women” from the Ministry’s name meant downplaying the women’s agenda.