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Embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss faced more calls from her own party to resign on Thursday after a key minister resigned and lawmakers rebelled in “a day of extraordinary chaos”.
Truss is being asked to step down just six weeks after taking office after a forced reversal in disastrous tax cuts that have caused the market to collapse during an already severe cost-of-living crisis.
Right-wing paper The Times reported that the prime minister was “hanging on to power,” quoting a Truss supporter in her cabinet as saying: “It’s incurable.”
The tabloid The Sun ran the front page headline “Broken,” saying Truss’ authority was in shambles after a day of extraordinary chaos.
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Conservative colleague Ed Vaizey said the only way out of this mess is for Liz Truss to resign and someone from Conservative MPs to be appointed prime minister.
The party could avoid a protracted leadership contest by consolidating around a single replacement, but Truss has shown no signs he’s ready to step down.
If she steps down, it would result in a Tory leadership contest that could be shortened if Tory MPs could agree on a single replacement. Otherwise, MPs could band together to trigger a vote of no confidence.
– ‘Must leave’ –
The new calls came a day after Truss’ Home Secretary Suella Braverman left after just six weeks in office, allegedly because she sent an official document in a personal email but used her resignation message to attack Truss.
Her sacking was the second reshuffle this month, after Truss fired his close ally Kwasi Kwarteng over the tax cut debacle and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt, who quickly rolled back nearly all policy announcements.
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The Daily Telegraph reported that Braverman left after a “heated face-to-face argument” with Truss and Hunt “over their demands to soften their stance on immigration.”
Truss named Grant Shapps to succeed Braverman, although she had previously fired him when she took office as Secretary of Transport. He had backed her rival for the lead, Rishi Sunak.
Braverman, who is seen as a hardliner on immigration, said she resigned over a “technical violation” of government regulations.
“I have made a mistake; I take responsibility; I’m resigning,” she wrote in her resignation letter, adding that she had “serious concerns” that Truss would break the promises made in the manifesto.
Truss has been widely criticized for failing to resign herself after forcing Kwarteng to take the blame for the Sept. 23 budget botch that sent markets into free fall.
“Pretending we haven’t made any mistakes, moving on like nobody can see we made them, and hoping things magically turn out well is not serious politics,” Braverman wrote and clearly hinted at Truss’s own behavior.
– ‘No Quitter’ –
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Braverman’s resignation news came hours after Truss tried to allay doubts about her leadership with a combative appearance in Parliament.
Truss was severely crushed by opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer as she took part in her first questions from the Prime Minister since the humiliating U-turn on tax cuts.
Starmer asked the House of Commons, “What good is a Prime Minister whose promises don’t last a week?” while opposition MPs taunted and booed Truss and MPs from her own party remained silent.
Truss insisted she would not step down, saying, “I’m a fighter, not a slacker.”
Later on Wednesday, chaotic scenes erupted in Parliament as the opposition proposed a debate on Truss’s controversial decision to resume fracking – drilling on land for gas.
Opposition Labor MPs claimed that Conservative MPs were physically forced to vote against the proposals by the whips enforcing party discipline, while dozens voted not along the party line.
Opposition leader Starmer was scheduled to address the TUC conference on Thursday.
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Polls show Truss’ personal and party ratings have fallen, with YouGov saying on Tuesday that she has become the most disliked leader she has ever stalked.
A separate poll of Conservative members found that less than two months after being elected party leader and prime minister, a majority now think she should go.
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