British Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced her resignation, barely 6 weeks after taking office.
She will be the shortest-serving prime minister in modern political history.
Truss’s short tenure was marked by shock over the government’s mini-budget, which roiled British markets, and internal party dissension leading to cabinet departures and backbenchers expressing a lack of confidence in their new leader.
Truss said that, “given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
Another Conservative leadership contest will take place within a week, Truss said in a short statement outside the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street. She will stay on until then.
It will be the fourth such contest for the party since David Cameron stepped down in the wake of a referendum that saw British voters support an exit from the European Union.
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, has called for a general election. The Conservative Party, then under the leadership of Boris Johnson, won a large majority in the last general election in 2019.
