The Prime Minister Liz Truss has resigned in a statement made in Downing Street.
She said: “I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability.
Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their bills.
Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine threatens the security of our whole continent.
And our country had been held back for too long by low economic growth.
I was elected by the Conservative Party with a mandate to change this.
We delivered on energy bills and on cutting national insurance.
And we set out a vision for a low tax, high growth economy – that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.
I recognise though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.
I have therefore spoken to His Majesty The King to notify him that I am resigning as Leader of the Conservative Party.
This morning I met the Chair of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady.
We have agreed there will be a leadership election to be completed in the next week.
This will ensure we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.
I will remain as Prime Minister until a successor has been chosen.
Thank you”
Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross said: “I wish Liz Truss and her family well. No matter where you stand on her decisions as Prime Minister, politics can be very tough on people personally.
“She has made a difficult choice but it is the right decision. There were no other options after recent events.
“We must now move forward quickly with the election of a new Leader and Prime Minister to restore stability for the good of the country.
“It is vital that the Conservative and Unionist Party unites and continues the hard work of getting the whole of the UK through the big challenges we face.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “It is right that Liz Truss has resigned.
“But, in truth, this entire Tory government has to go.
“The next Tory leader will have no mandate to be Prime Minister – we need a general election now.”
Midlothian MP Owen Thompson said: “It has been painful to watch the embarrassing spectacle that Westminster politics has become. Even with the resignation of Liz Truss, this shambolic conservative government cannot just change their leader and limp on.
“We need a serious, credible government to steer us through the cost-of-living crisis. Households, community groups and businesses are desperately struggling to pay their bills, while the UK Government has been busy fighting like ferrets in a sack, creating economic chaos and worsening the misery for millions. It is shameful.
“While Liz Truss had to go, it must be borne in mind that she is not the root cause of their woes. We have had 12 years of conservative mismanagement, with austerity policies bringing public services to their knees. We had the self-serving, chaotic and dishonest government led by Boris Johnson, blatantly disregarding the law and putting the international reputation of the UK in disrepute.
“The jaw-dropping incompetence of Liz Truss’s government has simply exposed the rot that already existed at the heart of the conservative party. The wheels are now rapidly coming off the plans of hard-right Brexiteers to create a low tax, unregulated Britain, removing protections for our people and the planet, all in the name of profit for the super-wealthy. Liz Truss was being encouraged to put her foot down and accelerate their plans for an extreme small state, now this has spectacularly crashed and failed.
“It reflects very badly on the system at Westminster that a few Conservative politicians still decide what happens next, when it has such huge implications for us all. The current mess belongs to all of them and they must not be allowed to scramble for another leader this week, then chunter on regardless.
“A general election is urgently needed to get a functioning government in place as soon as possible, but this is not a long-term solution for a broken system. Scotland rarely gets the government in Westminster it chooses and a new government won’t solve the chronic problems of this dysfunctional democracy or fix the disaster of Brexit.
“I’m glad in Scotland we have an alternative. We have a modern, transparent, proportionately elected parliament in place and working well at Holyrood. It’s time the Scottish Parliament had full powers over the economy to make decisions more closely aligned with the people of Scotland’s wishes and build the fairer, more equal society that we want to see. Independence is an idea whose time has come, and it cannot come soon enough.”
Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said: “Boris Johnson failed our country and Liz Truss trashed our economy. The Conservatives have proven time and time again they are not fit to lead our great country.
“We do not need another Conservative Prime Minister lurching from crisis to crisis, we need a general election, we need the Conservatives out of power and we need real change.
“It is time for Conservative MPs to do their patriotic duty, put the country first and give the people a say.”
Liz Truss’s time in Downing Street has been a disaster and a farce, according to the Scottish Greens.
Describing her disastrous tenure as “way beyond anything the Thick of It could have dreamt up”, the Party’s co-leader, Patrick Harvie MSP, went on to say “never in the field of British politics was so much harm done to so many, in so few weeks.”
Commenting on her resignation, the Scottish Greens co-leader, Patrick Harvie MSP, said: “Liz Truss’s time in Downing Street has been a disaster and a farce that goes way beyond anything the Thick of It could have dreamt up. The only positive is that she didn’t stay long enough to really deserve the word tenure.
“But never in the field of British politics was so much harm done to so many, in so few weeks. Truss’s legacy will be the cruel and unnecessary harm she has inflicted, and that will continue to be endured by households and families long after she has become a pub quiz answer.
“Her mini budget hammered millions of people in the name of an extreme economic experiment. But it didn’t come from nowhere. It was the result of decades of Tory fantasy and a totally reckless approach to finance.
“It’s not just Liz Truss that is totally unfit for office. After inflicting Boris Johnson on the country, and then handing the country over to the dark money think tanks, it is clear that the whole of the Conservative Party represents a clear and present danger to Scotland and the whole UK.
“The Tories talk about the importance of stability, but, since the 2014 referendum, Scotland has endured four Tory Prime Ministers that we didn’t vote for and couldn’t remove. Whoever replaces Liz Truss will be the fifth.
“We can’t go on with wave after wave of Tory chaos. With independence, Scotland can take a different path and end this Tory circus for good. We can build a fairer, greener and better future as an independent country in Europe.”
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
