Iran Press/ Europe: Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain announced her resignation on Thursday, bringing a swift end to a six-week stint in office that began with a radical experiment in trickle-down economics and descended into financial and political chaos, as most of those policies were reversed.
With her tax-cutting agenda in tatters, her Conservative Party’s lawmakers in revolt and her government in the hands of people who did not support either her or her policies, Truss, 47, concluded that she could no longer govern. She departs as the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, The New York Times reported.
“Given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” a grim Truss said, standing on the rain-slicked pavement outside 10 Downing Street, where only 44 days ago, she greeted the public as Britain’s new leader.
Truss said she would remain in office until the party chooses a successor, by the end of next week. That sets off an extraordinarily compressed, unpredictable scramble to replace her in a party that is both demoralized and deeply divided. Among the likely candidates is Boris Johnson, the flamboyant previous prime minister she replaced after he was forced out in a string of scandals.
Only a day after declaring in Parliament, “I’m a fighter, not a quitter,” Truss bowed out after a hastily scheduled meeting on Thursday with party elders, including Graham Brady, the head of a group of Conservative lawmakers that plays an influential role in selecting the party leader.
It was the most shocking jolt in a week of seismic developments that included the ouster of Truss’s chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng; the bitter departure of the home secretary, Suella Braverman; and a near melee in Parliament on Wednesday night, as cabinet ministers tried to force unruly Tory lawmakers to back the prime minister in a vote on whether to ban hydraulic fracking.
The spectacle dramatized how Truss — only the third female prime minister, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May — had lost control of her party and government.
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