British Prime Minister Liz Truss has resigned after a record-short 45 days in office. Truss’s error was twofold: She misread parliamentary backbench and financial market support for her tax cut agenda, and she then adopted a pressure strategy as her parliamentary authority waned. In the end, it sparked a fatal revolt from Truss’s own Conservative Party parliamentarians.
Truss’s very short tenure means that she leaves little in the way of a legacy. Her steadfast support for Ukraine and the associated ire this earned her from Russia is likely to be one positive, however. Celebrating Truss’s resignation and thus inadvertently granting her some praise, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared that “Britain has never known such a disgrace of a prime minister.” The U.S. may also come to regret Truss’s departure. She was set to endorse a more robust U.K. stance in support of U.S. concerns over China.
Yet, with two successive Conservative prime ministers now having fallen to scandal this year (Boris Johnson being Truss’s predecessor), and opinion polls showing the Labour Party opposition with a 20-30 point polling lead, whoever replaces Truss faces an extraordinary challenge. The new prime minister must not only restore public trust and confidence. He or she will have to unify a Conservative parliamentary party that now exists in a state of open internecine war.
TRUSS GOVERNMENT FACES STUNNING UK POLITICAL IMPLOSION
Who might that leader be?
Always sensing the outstretched hand of history — whether it exists or not — Boris Johnson is rumored to be considering a new run for the top job. Johnson has support within the party’s membership and was responsible for winning traditional Labour seats under his “one-nation Conservative” narrative of Brexit and government spending. Still, Johnson is a source of great division on the backbenches, and the scandals that brought him down remain recent memories. The risk is that a second Johnson premiership would only harden public attitudes against the Conservative Party and cause a truly catastrophic split within the backbenches.
Penny Mordaunt, who came third in the leadership election that saw Truss victorious, is another prospect. Mordaunt has earned some praise for her charismatic and forceful defenses of Truss’s administration even as it was coming apart at the seams.
Next, there’s the runner-up to Truss, Rishi Sunak. A former chancellor who ran his campaign on a pledge for fiscal caution, Sunak may now be seen as a safe bet to restore confidence with the financial markets and stability within the party. The risk is that he will be seen by many Conservative Party members as a candidate of the elite.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is also a serious contender. Shying away from the limelight apart from issues affecting his defense brief, Wallace would be seen to offer stability and a focus to day-to-day governance rather than big-ticket policy ideas.
Desperate to put the chaos behind them, the Conservative Party’s leadership committee says that a new prime minister will take office by next Friday.
