British PM Liz Truss sacks chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng

Liz Truss has sacked Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng after just 38 days in office, as she abandons key elements of bombshell mini budget.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked by Prime Minister Liz Truss overnight.

Liz Truss has sacked Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng after just 38 days in office, with the Prime Minister announcing a rise in taxes as she abandons key elements of a “mini-budget” that sent the British economy into a nosedive.

Ms Truss has appointed centrist Jeremy Hunt, a former candidate for the Conservative leadership, as her new finance minister in place of the sacked Mr Kwarteng.

Hours after sacking Mr Kwarteng, and stating the “need to act now to reassure the markets”, Ms Truss said: “I have therefore decided to keep the increase in corporation tax that was planned by the previous government”.

The about-turn means Ms Truss is abandoning one of her flagship promises that helped her seize the Tory party leadership and assume office on September 5.

Mr Kwarteng on Friday flew back a day early from talks in Washington, and was sacked on his arrival at Downing Street, becoming the second-shortest-serving chancellor in modern history. Conservative Iain Mac­leod died in office after just 30 days in 1970.

Prime Minister Liz Truss answers questions at a press conference in 10 Downing Street after sacking her former Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.

Mr Kwarteng had used the mini-budget to announce £45bn ($80bn) worth of unfunded tax cuts.

The sacking came after reports senior Tories were holding talks about replacing Ms Truss with a joint ticket of Rishi Sunak, who she beat in a grassroots Tory ballot last month, and Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt as part of a “coronation” by MPs.

Despite removing Mr Kwarteng, there are fears Ms Truss, 47, will not be able to salvage her premiership, especially in the wake of an acrimonious meeting with the 1922 Committee of backbenchers that calls leadership spills.

Party grandees were said to be in discussions about replacing Ms Truss with a “unity candidate” only weeks after she became the fourth Conservative leader in six years. Polling for The Times found almost half of those who voted for the Conservative Party at the last election want the party’s MPs to oust Ms Truss.

New UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street on October 14.

Sixty-two per cent say grassroots members made the wrong choice in the vote for leader, with 43 per cent wanting the party to install a new prime minister, compared with 29 per cent who oppose the move. Among the public, 50 per cent want Ms Truss ousted. Only 9 per cent think the Tories chose the right leader last month.

One senior Tory said: “A coronation won’t be that hard to arrange. In 2019, candidates needed eight MPs to get on the ballot paper. This year, they needed 20. Next time it will be however high it needs to be for only one candidate to clear it.”

The source predicted that a pact between Mr Sunak, a former chancellor, and Ms Mordaunt, 49, who finished third in the contest, would have the support of an overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs.

While Ms Truss defeated Mr Sunak, 42, in the ballot of about 170,000 party members to replace Boris Johnson, who was forced to resign by a cabinet revolt triggered by a cavalcade of scandals, the former chancellor won the vote of MPs to winnow the field down to two candidates for the grassroots ballot.

Britain's dismissed Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng gets into a car outside Number 11 Downing Street.

About “20 to 30” former ministers and senior backbenchers are attempting to find a way for a “council of elders” to tell Ms Truss to quit.

“Conversations are stepping up,” one former minister said.

Another MP added: “Rishi’s people, Penny’s people and the sensible Truss supporters who realise she’s a disaster just need to sit down together and work out who the unity candidate is.

“It’s either Rishi as prime minister with Penny as his deputy and foreign secretary, or Penny as prime minister with Rishi as chancellor. They would promise to lead a government of all the talents and most MPs would fall in behind that.”

Tory MPs have publicly suggested they were losing faith in Ms Truss, with former chief whip Julian Smith posting the definition of the word “confidence” on Twitter and Simon Hoare, a House of Commons select committee chairman, vowing to put “country and constituency” before party loyalty.

However, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said replacing Ms Truss would be a “disastrously bad idea” both politically and economically.

The Times