Her departure after six weeks in office coincided with the reversal of virtually all of her signature tax cuts, a stark rejection of her leadership.
LONDON — Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday, just days after her new finance minister reversed almost all of her planned tax cuts, erasing a free-market fiscal agenda that promised a radical policy shift for Britain but instead plunged the nation into weeks of economic and political turmoil.
She made brief remarks outside Downing Street in which she stated, “I cannot fulfill the mandate on which I was elected.”
She stated that she had informed King Charles III of her resignation as leader of the Conservative Party and that she would continue to serve as leader and prime minister until a successor is selected within a week.
Her departure after only six weeks in office was a shockingly swift fall from power, and it has thrown her Conservative Party further into disarray, following Boris Johnson’s messy departure from Downing Street in the summer.
The announcement was made minutes after Ms. Truss held an impromptu meeting with Graham Brady, the head of the influential 1922 Committee, a group of Conservative lawmakers responsible for selecting the party leader.
Ms. Truss’ political viability was in jeopardy after her proposals for extensive unfunded tax cuts shook the markets and caused the pound to plummet in value. On Monday, her newly appointed chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the government would undo the last remnants of Ms. Truss’s tax proposals.
This announcement represented one of the most dramatic reversals in contemporary British politics and a humiliating rejection of Ms. Truss’s leadership. In recent weeks, support for her Conservative Party had plummeted in opinion polls, and discontent among its legislators had intensified, threatening her ability to remain in office.
Mr. Hunt also stated that the government would end its massive intervention to cap energy prices in April, replacing it with an undefined program that would promote energy efficiency but could increase uncertainty for households facing rising gas and electricity costs.
On Wednesday, opposition lawmakers jeered Ms. Truss while she answered questions in Parliament, and hours later, she was forced to dismiss one of her most senior cabinet ministers, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, for a security breach.
Ms. Braverman admitted to having technically violated security regulations by sending a government document to a member of Parliament via her personal email. In her resignation letter to Ms. Truss, she expressed “concerns about the direction of this government,” accusing it of breaking promises to voters and failing to curb immigration in particular.
On Wednesday, a vote on whether to ban hydraulic fracking erupted into a near brawl, with accusations that ministers roughed up Conservative lawmakers and threatened them with retribution if they did not vote in favor of Ms. Truss.
