Liz Truss announced on Thursday that she would be leaving No 10 after a calamitous 45 days in office, sparking a Tory leadership contest, with Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Boris Johnson vying to become Britain’s next prime minister.
At a lectern outside Downing Street on another tumultuous day, Truss admitted she could not deliver the radical economic mandate on which she was elected by Tory members.
She will be the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister, having presided over what has been one of the most politically turbulent and economically damaging periods in modern history.
Keir Starmer, the Labor leader, led calls for an immediate general election, arguing that it was untenable for the Conservatives to appoint another prime minister without a new mandate. Instead, the Conservatives set a deadline of Friday, October 28 for the new contest to be completed.
Rivals to succeed Truss immediately embarked on urgent campaigns to sign up at least 100 Tory MPs before Monday afternoon to get on the ballot, with Sunak quickly gaining momentum to become the early favourite.
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Deputies said Johnson was considering another tilt at the job, even though he resigned in disgrace in July after a series of scandals left his personal integrity in tatters. Friends said she planned to return soon from a Caribbean vacation to gather support.
Conservative insiders said that, although popular among party members, Johnson was a deeply divisive figure among MPs and would struggle to reach the threshold needed for nominations.
“The brutal truth for Boris is that his support hasn’t changed at all since he was ousted. I can’t see him getting more than 60 votes. He’s done,” said one. However, his closest allies were already consulting Tory MPs, telling them he was responsible for their 80-seat majority at the last general election. If Johnson were to make it to the runoff, he would likely be the favorite among party members.
It was reported on Thursday night that the former prime minister planned to contact Sunak, his former chancellor, in an attempt to secure enough nominations to make the final vote.
Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader who came third last round, could also make the first cut unless the party’s right backs one of its own. If only one candidate reaches the 100 MP threshold on Monday, they will automatically take over.
Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor who buried Truss’s economic strategy with a series of humiliating U-turns after taking over from the ousted Kwasi Kwarteng, has declared himself out, although he is expected to stay in office if Sunak or Mordaunt win, in an attempt to consolidate the markets.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Tory heavyweight Michael Gove and centrist Tom Tugendhat have said they will not stop.
Fiscal sources said they are still working towards holding the next fiscal statement, which will outline spending plans, on October 31. However, the new prime minister may delay this if they want to develop their own plans to stabilize the economy. The pound rose on the news that Truss was leaving.
The race for number 10 has begun again, with Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Boris Johnson among the favorites to become Britain’s next Prime Minister. Photo: James Manning/PA
Truss’ downfall was accelerated by chaotic scenes on Wednesday, in which Suella Braverman resigned as home secretary over a breach of security protocol, before dozens of Tory MPs were left confused and furious by a slap and a brutal whipping operation over a vote on fracking, which the government ended up easily winning.
The first sign that this loss of confidence in Truss’ position had become terminal came on Thursday morning when Sir Graham Brady, the representative of backbench Tory MPs, arrived at Downing Street for a meeting, followed by close by Thérèse Coffey, the deputy prime minister and a close friend of Truss, and then Jake Berry, chairman of the Conservative party.
Shortly after 1.30pm, Truss stood in front of a lectern outside Gate 10 to make a statement that lasted just 90 seconds.
Mr Truss said he had come into office with “a vision of a low-tax, high-growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit”.
He continued: “I recognize that, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate for which I was elected by the Conservative party. I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am stepping down as leader of the Conservative party.”
She and Brady, who chairs the 1922 Conservative MPs Committee, had agreed to a timetable in which a successor would be chosen in just one week, Truss said, as opposed to the nearly two-month contest over the summer see Boris Johnson happen. .
In a final humiliation for Truss, and a sign of how distrustful she had become, a YouGov poll found that exactly 2% of Britons saw her as a “good” or “great” prime minister. Instead, 64% chose “terrible”, 18% simply “poor” and 7% “average”.
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Deputies also pointed the finger of blame at Coffey. “She was the one who caused the pain in the halls yesterday, she was the last Japanese soldier on the island fighting the war,” joked one.
Former Tory Prime Minister Theresa May urged Tory MPs to “commit” when choosing a new leader, after years of increasingly bitter division.
Truss satisfaction
Candidates to replace Truss will need at least 100 nominations to come forward, an important threshold set by the later 1922 Bankers Committee executive to avoid a protracted contest. The threshold will mean that a maximum of three candidates are likely to come forward, and potentially only one or two.
Some Conservative MPs claimed the contest had been “rigged” to allow a Sunak coronation. There will be an indicative vote of the deputies once the candidacies close. In the event that there are three candidates, there will be two rounds of voting on Monday, meaning that a final pair of candidates will emerge on Monday evening.
Unless there is only one candidate who reaches the nomination threshold, there will be a membership vote, although MPs express a strong desire to exclude members from the process.
If necessary, it will be carried out over the next week, with at least one broadcast. MPs will also hear the candidates in a roll call after nominations close at 2pm on Monday, but this will be behind closed doors, meaning a new leader could be chosen without ever addressing the public in the contest .
Sunak received more than 140 votes in the last round and his allies have sent out a call for supporters to start tweeting their endorsements starting Thursday evening.
Sunak lost the leadership to Truss over the summer and was blamed by many members for ousting Johnson. The former chancellor has retained his lawyer during Truss’s difficulties, but supporters have been quick to point out that many of his predictions about unfunded tax cuts and mortgage rates have been proven correct.
Mordaunt is also likely to be a strong candidate with Brexiter credentials; his last leadership campaign was blunted by Truss’ attacks.
Two right-wing candidates, Kemi Badenoch and recently sacked interior minister Suella Braverman, were said to be in talks over whether one of them could make a bid.
Within minutes of Truss’ departure, opposition parties were calling for an election, saying a third prime minister since Johnson’s victory in 2019 would be absurd. Labor leader Keir Starmer argued that the Tories must not respond again by “shuffling people to the top without the consent of the British people”.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “It was inevitable that Liz Truss would have to go after the damage she has done, but it is not enough to change the leaders of a broken Tory government. Now there must be a general election – people will accept nothing less.”
George Canning, so far the shortest Prime Minister in British history, died after 119 days in office in August 1827.