British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns

Transcript

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

British Prime Minister Liz Truss has resigned. The move comes a little more than six weeks after she took the job and she becomes the country's fourth prime minister in less than seven years.

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PRIME MINISTER LIZ TRUSS: 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.

MARTINEZ: All right. For reaction and analysis from London, we turn to our correspondent Frank Langfitt. Frank, so why is Truss resigning, and what's next because this has been moving quickly, very, very fast over the last few weeks?

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Yeah, and especially, I would say, A, over the last 24 hours. I mean, her rule just became untenable. If you remember going back a number of weeks ago, she planned on tax cuts, which she had no way to finance. That tanked the pound and sent mortgages spiraling. Then we had these departures. She ended up having to fire her treasury secretary. And then last night there was complete chaos in Parliament. And one member basically said, you know, this is a shambles and disgrace, and the damage that she's doing to the party is extraordinary. Now, what she said today is she will stay on for the next week or so as they have a leadership contest to try to replace her, and the new prime minister, whoever that is, will try to right a very, very rocky boat.

MARTINEZ: So the new leader - and that's - this is something interesting. I almost think, why would that person want this job? It just seems so unstable.

LANGFITT: Well, that's a great question. And I think that logically speaking, in many cases, A, over the last six years that I've covered British politics, I think the prime ministership has seemed like a poisoned chalice because there's so many challenges that this country faces, both politically and economically. And also it's had to chart a new course in the world after Brexit. But I've said this to political scientists, and they say never underestimate the ambition of a British politician who thinks this may be my one chance to do this. They are going to face a lot of challenges. Right now, the Labour Party, the opposition Labour Party, is more than 30 points ahead in polls. Many British Conservative Party prime - lawmakers in her party - Liz Truss's party - are afraid of losing jobs when a next election could come, which might be in a couple of years. And so they're looking for somebody who can at least kind of reduce the damage that's been done, particularly by Liz Truss but also Boris Johnson before her.

MARTINEZ: Has this ever happened before - six weeks on the job as the Prime Minister?

LANGFITT: I'd have to double check, but I think it is extremely rare and perhaps not before - certainly not in modern times. I've never heard of it. And also the turnover - I mean, No. 10 Downing Street, A, has become a revolving door, and that's not what this country was like. If you look back, this was a place - until the Brexit vote of 2016, this was a political system that was known for very solid, sometimes dull governing, but nothing like what we've seen really in the past few years.

MARTINEZ: So the economy - what does this do to the economy to have this kind of turmoil and tumult so quickly?

LANGFITT: Well, I think it's - what's going to - what they're doing is because this actually - these moves that Liz Truss made, which is basically trickle-down economics, which the financial markets did not buy, and that's why they responded as they did, why the pound collapsed and why mortgages rose so quickly - a lot of the damage has been done and has probably been priced in, frankly, by the markets. And the next prime minister's job is to kind of steady things.

Now, one good news is that Jeremy Hunt - and he's been in government off and on for quite some time, and he's seen as a centrist - he is now the new chancellor of the exchequer. That's essentially the Treasury secretary. And what he did - this was remarkable, A. He came into office hired by Liz Truss and basically completely reversed her entire economic package, which is another reason why she had to resign. She had no - this was what she ran on, and she had no credibility. And Hunt is seen as competent, and I think he did calm the markets.

MARTINEZ: How are the people of Great Britain holding up? I mean, they have a brand new monarch, and now they're going to get another prime minister. But it just seems like that's a lot to take in...

LANGFITT: It is.

MARTINEZ: ...In just a few...

LANGFITT: It is an...

MARTINEZ: Yeah.

LANGFITT: It's exhausting. And what really makes this a serious - not just a political crisis, but an economic crisis is you're talking about people's mortgages. You're talking about the energy shock from the Ukraine war. Heating bills are going way up. And this is not that well-paid a country. I mean, you talk to some people in London - London's an extremely expensive city. Salaries are not that high, relatively, compared to, say, the United States. And so I think people have felt this acutely.

MARTINEZ: That's NPR's Frank Langfitt in London. Frank, thank you very much.

LANGFITT: Great to talk, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.