Liz Truss has announced that she is stepping down as the Prime Minister during a statement outside No.10.
Ms Truss said she has told King Charles III she is resigning.
In a statement outside No 10 she said: “I recognise… given the situation I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
She added that she will stay on as Prime Minister until a successor is chosen via a leadership election to be held within the next week.
Liz Truss
Kirsty O'Connor
She added: “This morning I met the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.
“We’ve agreed that there will be a leadership election to be completed within the next week.
“This will ensure that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plan and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.
“I will remain as Prime Minister until a successor has been chosen.
“Thank you.”
With her husband Hugh O’Leary alongside her, Ms Truss continued: “I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability.
“Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their bills.”
Vladimir Putin’s “illegal war in Ukraine threatens the security of our whole continent”.
Ms Truss has told King Charles III she is resigning
Stefan Rousseau
She said the UK had been “held back for too long by low economic growth”.
Following her resignation, Sir Keir Starmer has called for an immediate general election.
The Labour leader said: “The Conservative Party has shown it no longer has a mandate to govern.
“After 12 years of Tory failure, the British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos. 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. The damage they have done will take years to fix.
“Each one of these crises was made in Downing Street but paid for by the British public. Each one has left our country weaker and worse off.
“The Tories cannot respond to their latest shambles by yet again simply clicking their fingers and shuffling the people at the top without the consent of the British people. They do not have a mandate to put the country through yet another experiment; Britain is not their personal fiefdom to run how they wish.
“The British public deserve a proper say on the country’s future. They must have the chance to compare the Tories’ chaos with Labour’s plans to sort out their mess, grow the economy for working people and rebuild the country for a fairer, greener future. We must have a chance at a fresh start. We need a general election – now.”
While Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has also called for a general election following the Prime Minister’s resignation.
“We don’t need another Conservative Prime Minister lurching from crisis to crisis,” he tweeted.
“We need a General Election now and the Conservatives out of power.”