NEWS
UK opposition leaders call for immediate general election as Truss resigned – Reports
Leaders of the UK’s opposition parties – the Labour Party and The Liberal Democrats – have called for an immediate general election after Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation, the Sky News broadcaster reported on Thursday. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said that the country needs a general election “now,” while Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey said that “the Conservatives (need to be) out of power and … (Britons) need real change.”
Truss was elected head of the UK government on Sept. 6 and had only been in office for 44 days by the time the resignation was announced.
Conservative lawmakers had increasingly called on Truss to step down after she was forced to junk most of her economic programme, which when delivered on Sept. 23 sent the pound and government bond markets tumbling.
She drafted in former health minister Jeremy Hunt as her new finance minister to try to reset her administration, but on Wednesday her lawmakers turned on each other and another senior minister resigned, leaving Truss’s authority in tatters.
Conservative lawmakers say her most likely successors are either her leadership rival, former finance minister Rishi Sunak or Penny Mordaunt, who came third in the race to become the next prime minister just six weeks ago.
