Liz Truss has met the King and resigned as Prime Minister.
Speaking before she left for Buckingham Palace, Ms Truss said she learned from her short spell as Prime Minister that leaders must be “bold”.
After seven chaotic weeks as Prime Minister, she spoke of the need for tax cuts and celebrated reversing the national insurance hike imposed by incoming PM Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor.
“In just a short period, this government has acted urgently and decisively on the side of hardworking families and businesses,” she said, standing outside Number 10 Downing Street.
“We reversed the national insurance increase. We helped millions of households with their energy bills and helped thousands of businesses avoid bankruptcy.
“We are taking back our energy independence so we are never again beholden to global market fluctuations or malign foreign powers.”
Britain’s shortest serving PM said: “From my time as Prime Minister I’m more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the challenges we face.
“We simply cannot afford to be a low growth country where the Government takes up an increasing share of our national wealth and where there are huge divides between different parts of our country. We need to take advantage of our Brexit freedoms to do things differently.”
She cited one of these benefits as “lower taxes, so people keep more of the money they earn”, before wishing Mr Sunak “every success, for the good of our country”.
Ending her speech, she said: “We continue to battle through a storm but I believe in Britain, I believe in the British people and I know that brighter days lie ahead.”
She then travelled to Buckingham Palace to formally tender her resignation to the King after just 49 days in office, making her the shortest-serving Prime Minister in history.
She made the journey with her husband Hugh O’Leary and their daughters, Frances, 16, and Liberty, 13.
The head of state and Ms Truss met in the palace’s 1844 Room.
In a statement, Buckingham Palace said: “The Right Honourable Elizabeth Truss MP had an Audience of The King this morning and tendered her resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which His Majesty was graciously pleased to accept.”
Soon afterwards, Rishi Sunak will have his audience in the same room, where the King will invite him to form a government as Britain’s new Prime Minister.
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