Foggy day in London as Truss quits, Conservatives ponder grim future

The shortest prime ministership in Britain’s history is leaving the ruling Conservative Party and the country facing a long list of questions.

Bowing to the inevitable, Prime Minister Liz Truss quit her post on Thursday, just 45 days after taking the job. Her leadership was undone by a fiscal plan that was ruthlessly upended by the markets, forcing the government into a humiliating about-face. 

Ms. Truss said she could not deliver as Tory leader and told King Charles she would resign.

“I will remain as prime minister until a successor has been chosen,” she said, adding that she expected the leadership election to be concluded by next week.

It was a stunning collapse for the prime minister, who tried to stabilize the country after scandal-plagued Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced out by a party revolt. It has set off a wide-open race for a successor and demands from the opposition Labor Party that the government call a general election more than two years early as it confronts a collapse in public confidence.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, a former rival to Ms. Truss inside the Conservative Party, said he would not compete to become prime minister. Conservative leaders said they hope to wrap up deliberations by Oct. 28. Among those likely in the running are former treasury chief Rishi Sunak, who lost to Ms. Truss in the leadership final vote in August, just-resigned Home Secretary Suella Braverman, House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace — and even Mr. Johnson.

Ms. Truss, who won a divisive Conservative Party race of the summer to win the top post in September, was unable to overcome the collapse of confidence in her government after her program of broad tax cuts and deregulation collapsed.

Critics said the cuts would not be offset and were likely to raise borrowing costs and drive down the value of the pound at a time when inflation in Britain tops 10%. Ms. Truss’ first choice for treasury chief was forced to resign, and other major figures in the party signaled that Conservatives no longer had confidence in her leadership.

“She had to go,” Victoria Bateman, a Cambridge University economist, told Bloomberg News. “She had no credibility, and the British government was literally falling apart. Realistically, she was doomed from the beginning since she was elected on a series of promises that were simply not deliverable.”

The prime minister’s position was so hapless that a head of iceberg lettuce briefly became a national celebrity when the tabloid Daily Star set up a livestreamed race last week to see whether the wilting produce or the wilting prime minister would last longer.

When Ms. Truss announced she was packing it in, the website turned a framed portrait of her face-down and placed a crown atop the lettuce.

Ms. Truss, 47, also joined the ranks of political leaders — including France’s Francois Mitterand in the 1980s and President Clinton in the 1990s — forced to radically rewrite or junk their agendas in the face of financial market pressure and investor panic. Opposition Labor Party head Keir Starmer said the Truss government had caused damage to the country that “will take years to fix.”

He renewed a call for a snap general election. “After 12 years of Tory failure, the British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos,” Mr. Starmer said in a statement. “In the last few years, the Tories have set record-high taxation, trashed our institutions and created a cost of living crisis. Now, they have crashed the economy so badly that people are facing £500 a month extra on their mortgages.”

Bumpy road ahead

The way ahead is unclear. The Conservatives retain a large majority in Parliament and technically do not have to face the voters for more than two years. Still, polls give Mr. Starmer’s Labor Party a huge edge after a decade out of power, and the government will likely face strong pressure to call a general election sooner.

Ms. Truss said in a resignation statement delivered outside No. 10 Downing St. that her brief government had managed to ease soaring energy bills for British consumers and compiled a strong record of support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion. She also defended her approach of lower taxes and deregulation as the best way to spur growth for Britain in the post-Brexit world.

“I recognize however that, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” she said.

British politics was flush with speculation over who might succeed Ms. Truss, including reports that Mr. Johnson may be weighing a run for his old job. Conservative members of Parliament are to meet to decide on potential successors and could have a new prime minister in place as soon as Monday if a consensus candidate emerges. Otherwise, Ms. Truss will stay on the job as the field is whittled down.

Conservative Party leaders outlined a process in which potential successors must get the backing of at least 100 sitting members of Parliament to get on the ballot, with votes set for early next week. The party’s rank-and-file membership will get a say in the process only if more than one candidate emerges from the parliamentary contest. That vote is to be completed by Oct. 28.

President Biden, who recently offered critical comments about the Truss economic agenda, said in a brief statement that Anglo-American relations would remain solid.

“I thank Prime Minister Liz Truss for her partnership on a range of issues, including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine,” Mr. Biden said. “We will continue our close cooperation with the U.K. government as we work together to meet the global challenges our nations face.”

The news was greeted positively in at least one country. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the Kremlin would not miss Ms. Truss.

“Britain has never known such a disgrace of a prime minister,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a social media post.

Ms. Truss’ resignation does not resolve a more fundamental split in the Conservative ranks, where the parliamentary factions in London prefer a more moderate, mainstream candidate such as Mr. Sunak but the party faithful around the country showed a clear preference for the more hard-edged Ms. Truss. 

Some saw her collapse as the ultimate triumph of the London political and business establishment against a prime minister who dared to cut taxes, curb regulation, take a tough line on immigration and chart an independent course offered by Britain’s controversial exit from the European Union.

The real lesson of Ms. Truss’ tenure for conservatives, said Nile Gardiner, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Thatcher Center for Freedom, is “never surrender to the Left.”

“In the face of mounting opposition, including attacks from the IMF and President Biden, she failed to stand her ground and now her own party and Brexit itself are in peril,” Mr. Gardiner said in a statement. “Liberal elites within the Conservative Party and the Westminster establishment are undermining the will of the British people.”