By Spy Uganda Correspondent
British Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced she will stand down as leader of the Conservative Party after her policies triggered economic turmoil and sharply divided the party but here are a few things you need to know about her.
Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson and became PM on 6 September then resigned 45 days later. The previous record was set at 119 days by George Canning who died in office in 1827.
With her support, finance minster Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled £45bn of tax cuts in her third week, in what they called a “mini-budget”. But it was widely blamed for causing huge economic problems. Despite Truss insisting at the time it was “the right thing to do”, almost all of it has now been reversed – and Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor.
Dozens of Tories called on her to step down and her Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned. She had to hire former rivals Grant Shapps and Jeremy Hunt to plug the gaps in her top team.
In her resignation speech outside Downing Street, she said: “I recognise that I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
Only Conservative MPs and party members got to vote to make her leader. Sunak came ahead in the MPs’ vote but in the final vote from members, more than 80,000 picked her instead of Sunak, making her the winner.
There will be a leadership contest within the next week. She will stay on as leader until her replacement is announced.
The Queen appointed Liz Truss days before she died and her leadership began with a 10-day mourning period.
After university, she worked for Shell and Cable & Wireless and married accountant Hugh O’Leary in 2000. They have two daughters. The family live in Thetford, Norfolk.
But How Will The New Prime Minister Be Elected?
The new leader will become the fifth Conservative prime minister in six years.
Going by the rules, once a Conservative leader has stood down, an election for a new party leader is triggered.
The detailed rules of the contest are organised by the 1922 Committee. It represents all backbench Conservative MPs and is chaired by Sir Graham Brady MP and the threshold MPs will need to get on the ballot.
Removing party members from the voting process would probably require a change to the Conservative Party’s constitution.
However, this only applies if there are two remaining candidates. When Theresa May became a leader in 2016 her opponent Andrea Leadsom dropped out. This meant Mrs May became party leader without a vote being put to party members.
Whoever wins the contest to lead the Conservatives will become the leader of the party with the largest number of MPs in Parliament.
The King will therefore ask them to form a government, becoming the UK’s next prime minister in the process.
The summer leadership contest, which Ms Truss won, was held over a much longer period of three months.
Firstly, Tory MPs chose two candidates to go forward to a vote of the wider membership of the party.
Tory MPs whittled down the field with a series of ballots where the candidate with the fewest votes was eliminated after each round.
Ms Truss – along with former chancellor Rishi Sunak – ended up with the most votes and therefore entered the final stage.
In stage two, Conservative Party members chose the winner in a vote.
To try to win the members’ support, Ms Truss and Mr Sunak took part in a series of debates around the UK, where they were questioned about their policies.
When the result was announced on 5 September, Ms Truss won 81,326 votes among party members, compared with 60,399 for her rival Rishi Sunak.
There isn’t automatically a general election when a new PM is appointed.
If the new PM decides not to call an early election, the next one does not have to be held until January 2025 at the latest.
