Lizz Truss resign as British Prime Minister

United Kingdom Prime Minister Lizz Truss has resigned after only 44 days in office becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in Britain’s history.

She announced her resignation outside Downing Street where she admitted that she could not deliver her mandate.

“I recognize though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party. I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to announce that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.”

The Conservative Party, which holds a big majority in parliament for another two years, will now elect a new leader by Friday next week.

Graham Brady, the Conservative politician who is in charge of leadership votes and reshuffles, said he was now looking at how the vote could include Conservative MPs and the wider party members.

For 10 days of her premiership government business was paused following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The number who had written letters to Brady expressing no confidence in the prime minister was reported to be more than 100.

In her statement, Truss suggested the legacies of her brief tenure were supporting households with energy bills and cutting the rate of national insurance, a general taxation in Britain.

She also said the U.K. had continued to stand with Ukraine and to protect their own security.”

“The United States and the United Kingdom are strong Allies and enduring friends and that fact will never change,” United States President Joe Biden said in response to the news.

“I thank Prime Minister Liz Truss for her partnership on a range of issues including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine. We will continue our close cooperation with the U.K. government as we work together to meet the global challenges our nations face,” he added.

Paul Dales, chief U.K. economist at Capital Economics, said the new PM would need to do more to regain the trust of financial markets.

“Overall, the resignation of Truss is a step that needed to happen for the UK government to move further along the path towards restoring credibility in the eyes of the financial markets. But more needs to be done and the new Prime Minister and their Chancellor have a big task to navigate the economy through the cost of living crisis, cost of borrowing crisis and the cost of credibility crisis,” he said.

Truss will however remain as prime minister until her successor has been chosen.