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UK Tory Party will choose new PM by Oct. 28

UK Tory Party will choose new PM by Oct. 28

Newslooks- LONDON (AP)

After British Prime Minister Liz Truss quits Thursday, the Conservative Party said it would choose a successor by the end of next week.

Potential contenders include: former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, who lost to Truss in the last leadership contest; House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt; Defense Secretary Ben Wallace; and Boris Johnson, the former prime minister ousted in July over a series of ethics scandals.

UK meets energy firms but no help yet for hard-hit consumers
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson hosts a reception for the winners of the Points of Light Award in Downing Street, London, Tuesday Aug. 9, 2022. (Peter Nicholls/Pool via AP)
From right, Britain’s Secretary of State for Education Kit Malthouse, Secretary of State for Wales Robert Buckland and Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt, leave after a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in London, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

But Tory leader will need at least 100 nominations, Sir Graham Brady has fixed “a high threshold” to replace Liz Truss, with a new prime minister set to be announced by the end of the week.

FILE – British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the British Embassy in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. Wallace said in a statement Thursday, June 2, 2022, that Britain will send sophisticated medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine, in a move coordinated with the United States. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
FILE – Rishi Sunak meets supporters as he arrives to attend a Conservative Party leadership election hustings at the NEC, Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. After weeks of waiting, Britain will finally learn who will be its new prime minister. The governing Conservative Party will announce Monday, Sept. 5, 2022 whether Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak won the most votes from party members to succeed Boris Johnson as party leader and British prime minister. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)

Truss quits after a tumultuous and historically brief term marred by economic policies that roiled financial markets and a rebellion in her political party that obliterated her authority.

Truss became the third Conservative prime minister to be toppled in as many years, extending the instability that has shaken Britain since it broke off from the European Union and leaving its leadership in limbo as the country faces a cost-of-living crisis and looming recession.

“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” Truss acknowledged in a statement delivered outside her 10 Downing Street office.

FILE – New British Prime Minister Liz Truss makes an address outside Downing Street in London Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022 after returning from Balmoral in Scotland where she was formally appointed by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. Truss says her government will cap domestic energy prices for homes and businesses to ease the cost-of-living crisis. Truss told lawmakers Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022 that the two-year “energy price guarantee” means average household bills will be no more than 2,500 pounds ($2,872) a year for heating and electricity. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

Financial markets breathed a sigh of relief, but Truss leaves a divided ruling party seeking a leader who can unify its warring factions. Truss, who said she will remain in office until a replacement is chosen, has been prime minister for just 45 days and will almost certainly go down as the shortest-serving leader in British history. George Canning died in office in 1827 after 119 days.

The low-tax, low-regulation economic policies that got Truss elected by her party proved disastrous in the real world at a time of soaring inflation and weak growth.

Her Sept. 23 economic plan included a raft of tax cuts — paid for by government borrowing — that investors worried Britain couldn’t afford. It pummeled the value of the pound and drove up the cost of mortgages, causing economic pain for people and businesses already struggling from an economy yet to emerge from the pain of the pandemic.

FILE – Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, left and Prime Minister Liz Truss react, during a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the Conservative Party annual conference in Birmingham, England, Ot. 2, 2022. British media on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 say Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng has left the government, ahead of an announcement by Prime Minister Liz Truss on changes to an economic package that sparked market turmoil. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP, File)

That financial tumult led to the replacement of Truss’ Treasury chief, multiple policy U-turns and a breakdown of discipline in the governing Conservative Party.

Truss resigned just a day after vowing to stay in power, saying she was “a fighter and not a quitter.” But she couldn’t hold on any longer after a senior minister quit her government amid a barrage of criticism and a vote in the House of Commons Wednesday descended into chaos and acrimony.

Miriam Cates
Conservative lawmaker Miriam Cates

“It’s time for the prime minister to go,” Conservative lawmaker Miriam Cates said, echoing the sentiments of many others.

The pound rose about 1% Thursday to around $1.13 after Truss’ resignation.

Where the Conservative Party goes from here is not clear. Its myriad factions — from hard-right Brexiteers to centrist “One Nation” Tories — are at each other’s throats.

“Nobody has a route plan. It’s all sort of hand-to-hand fighting on a day-to-day basis,” Conservative lawmaker Simon Hoare told the BBC on Thursday before Truss resigned.

Conservative lawmaker Simon Hoare

Newspapers that usually support the Conservatives were vitriolic. An editorial in the Daily Mail on Thursday was headlined: “The wheels have come off the Tory clown car.”

Truss’ departure on Thursday sparked jubilation for the tabloid Daily Star, which had set up a livestream last week featuring a photo of the prime minister beside a head of lettuce to see which would last longer.

“This lettuce outlasted Liz Truss!” it proclaimed Thursday.

Bronwyn Maddox, director of international affairs think-tank Chatham House

While many Britons joined the world in laughing at the lettuce joke, Bronwyn Maddox, director of international affairs think-tank Chatham House, said “there is no question that the U.K.’s standing in the world has been severely battered by this episode and by the revolving door of prime ministers.”

She said Truss’ successor would need to have policies “based on economic stability, but need also to include a resolution of the relationship with Europe; much of the upheaval represents the bitter aftermath of Brexit.”

Conservative party leadership contender Rishi Sunak looks on before the live television debate for the candidates for leadership of the Conservative party, hosted by Channel 4 in London, Friday, July 15, 2022. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP)

The Conservative party said nominations for a new leader will close on Monday. Candidates need the signatures of 100 of the 357 Conservative lawmakers, meaning a maximum field of three. Lawmakers will knock out one of those, and will ask the party’s 172,000 members to decide between the two finalists in an online vote. The new leader is due to be in place by Oct. 28.

Truss’ resignation is the culmination of months of simmering discontent inside the Conservative Party, whose poll ratings have plunged.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks outside Downing Street in London, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022 before heading to Balmoral in Scotland, where he will announce his resignation to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. Later on Tuesday Liz Truss will formally become Britain’s new Prime Minister after an audience with the Queen. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Johnson’s government came undone after he was revealed to have held a series of parties in government buildings at a time when people in Britain were barred from mingling with friends and family or even visiting dying relatives. The Conservative party spent the summer picking a replacement as the economy worsened amid spiking energy prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Whoever succeeds Truss will become the country’s third prime minister this year. A national election doesn’t have to be called until 2024, but opposition parties demanded one be held now, saying the government lacks democratic legitimacy.

In this handout photo provided by UK Parliament, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons in London, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament via AP)

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer accused the Conservatives of presiding over “utter chaos.”

“This is doing huge damage to our economy and the reputation of our country,” he said. “We must have a chance at a fresh start. We need a general election – now.”

FILE – Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng arrives in Downing Street in London, on Sept. 7, 2022 for the first cabinet meeting since Liz Truss was installed as British Prime Minister a day earlier. Britain’s Conservative government is expected to publish an emergency budget statement Friday, Sept. 23, 2022 outlining how it plans to slash taxes, tame soaring inflation and boost economic growth as a recession looms on the horizon. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)

Truss’ political unraveling began after she and her Treasury chief, Kwasi Kwarteng, unveiled an economic plan with 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in unfunded tax cuts. That hammered the value of the pound and increased the cost of U.K. government borrowing. The Bank of England was forced to intervene to prevent the crisis from spreading to the wider economy and putting pension funds at risk.

Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street in London after he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer following the resignation of Kwasi Kwarteng, Friday Oct. 14, 2022. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng said he has accepted Prime Minister Liz Truss’ request he “stand aside” as Chancellor, paying the price for the chaos unleashed by his mini-budget. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)

Truss then fired Kwarteng, and his replacement, Jeremy Hunt, scrapped almost all of Truss’ tax cuts, cut short her energy subsidies and abandoned her promise of no public spending cuts. He said the government will need to save billions of pounds and there are “many difficult decisions” to be made before he sets out a medium-term fiscal plan on Oct. 31.

Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman arrives in Downing Street in London, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022 for the first cabinet meeting since Liz Truss was installed as British Prime Minister a day earlier. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Speaking to lawmakers on Wednesday for the first time since the U-turn, Truss apologized and admitted she had made mistakes, but insisted she would not resign — a resolve that was short-lived. Within hours a senior Cabinet minister, Home Secretary Suella Braverman, quit, blasting Truss in her resignation letter, saying she had “concerns about the direction of this government.”

Chris Bryant
Image caption, Chris Bryant has represented Rhondda in Parliament since

For many Conservative lawmakers, the final straw was a Wednesday evening vote over fracking for shale gas that produced chaotic scenes in Parliament, with party whips accused of using heavy-handed tactics to gain votes.

Chris Bryant, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, said he “saw members being physically manhandled … and being bullied.” Conservative officials denied this.

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