London: Liz Truss has resigned as U.K. prime minister after less than two months in the job, with a rapid-fire contest now underway to replace her as Conservative Party leader.
In a short but dramatic televised statement outside No. 10 Downing Street Thursday, Truss said she could no longer "deliver the mandate on which I was elected" and would step down as PM as soon as a new leader is chosen.
She said a truncated contest will now be held to pick her successor, with a new British PM due to be installed "within a week." It leaves Truss with the unwanted tag of Britain's shortest-serving prime minister.
"I recognise … I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party," she said in her statement. "I have therefore spoken to his majesty the king, to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party."
Keys figures including Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee — which oversees Conservative Party rules and represents its backbenchers — held crisis with Truss in Downing Street Thursday morning after a series of calamities befell her 44-day-old premiership.
She has faced weeks of chaos after unveiling a radical economic plan of unfunded tax cuts on September 23 which spooked financial markets, sent U.K. borrowing costs soaring and collapsed her party's poll ratings to a record low.
Truss attempted to steady her faltering administration last week by sacking her friend and chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and replacing him with a center-ground choice, her former leadership rival Jeremy Hunt. Hunt immediately junked her entire economic program in an effort to calm the markets and bring down Britain's borrowing costs.
But there were further disasters Wednesday as her pick for home secretary, Suella Braverman, was forced to resign and fired a fresh broadside at the PM's appraoch.
There were subsequently scenes of chaos in the House of Commons Wednesday night as party enforcers struggled to marshal Tory MPs in a crucial vote, prompting a fresh round of Conservative lawmakers to go public with their demands for Truss to leave office.