Liz Truss has announced her resignation as Prime Minister and the Conservative Party Leader in a statement outside Downing Street this afternoon.
With this announcement Truss becomes the shortest-serving Prime Minister in UK history, spending only 45 days in office. She assumed office on 6th September after winning the Conservative leadership election in the summer.
There will be another leadership competition next week, with Truss remaining in office until a successor is chosen.
The Prime Minister’s resignation comes after a chaotic week in Westminster. Last Friday, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked after the failures of his ‘mini-budget’. Then, after a mildly successful Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned after a technical breaking of the ministerial code. Later that night chaos interrupted in a House of Commons vote on fracking, in which the Conservative party Chief and Deputy Chief Whips seemingly resigned following reports of bullying and manhandling in the voting lobbies.
Truss’s tenure covered a short but dramatic period, overseeing the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Second, a disastrous mini-budget and monumental shocks to the economy.