SOURCE: BBC NEWS
Liz Truss has announced her resignation as UK prime minister.
Speaking outside Downing Street, she says she has told King Charles she is resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.
Truss says she cannot deliver mandate she was elected on
Liz Truss is continuing her statement outside Number 10.
In front of dozens of reporters she says she came into office at a time of “great economic and international instability”.
The country had been held back for too long, she said, and she was elected by her party with a “mandate to change this”.
She said her government delivered on energy bills and cutting national insurance, and had set out a vision for a “low tax high growth economy”.
She added: “I recognise… given the situation I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
Leadership contest will take place within the next week – Truss
Liz Truss goes on to say that she met with 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady today.
They agreed there will be a leadership election within the next week.
She says this will ensure “that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security”.
Truss says she will remain as prime minister until a successor has been chosen.
Starmer demands election as Truss quits
Labour leader Keir Starmer has demanded a general election “now” after Liz Truss announced her resignation as prime minister.
Truss the briefest serving PM in UK history
Liz Truss has been in office for just 45 days – the shortest tenure of any UK prime minister. The second shortest serving PM was George Canning, who served for 119 days after dying in 1827.
Trouble began when her first Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, spooked the financial markets with his mini-budget on 23 September.
Since then, Conservative disquiet has morphed into widespread anger within the parliamentary party.
Her stepping down today follows dramatic scenes in the House of Commons last night over a vote on fracking. Calls for her to go kept growing in the hours afterwards.
