Tuesday, 26 Nov 2024

Liz Truss resigns after explosive backlash to economic plans

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Liz Truss has quit as Prime Minister after senior Tories told the Prime Minister she had lost control of the party. The Conservative leader’s reputation lay in tatters after a dramatic and tumultuous week in politics.

Mayhem in Westminster reached it climax last night in a crunch Commons vote on fracking, which saw a number of Tory backbenchers revolt, accusations of ministers screaming at MPs, and uncertainty as to whether senior Government members had resigned.

The resignation makes Ms Truss the UK’s shortest-serving Prime Minister in history.

She bowed to pressure from her Tory MPs as the party’s popularity sunk to its lowest level ever with one poll suggesting they could be left with just one MP after an election.

Her authority started to collapse after her controversial mini-budget on September 23 panicked the financial markets.

She announced plans cancelled planned tax rises, introduced a two-year energy price guarantee, cut the basic rate of income tax to 19p and scrapped the 45p top rate of income tax.

However, the fiscal event sparked a collapse of the pound and a drop in stocks and shares undermining the safety of pension funds.

Within weeks she was forced to replace her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng with Jeremy Hunt who reversed almost all her policies and embarked on tax rises and spending cuts.

At that point Tory MPs, facing election extinction, demanded she should quit with plans in place to find a replacement to crown and avoid a leadership contest.

Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPs which determines the rules of leadership elections, visited the Prime Minister earlier today to let it be known that he had lost the confidence of her backbenchers.

More to follow…

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