October 2022 United Kingdom government crisis

Liz Truss announcing her intention to resign as Conservative leader on 20th October 2022

### Cause

September 2022 mini-budget
Confusion over a parliamentary vote to ban fracking

### Outcome

Departures of Kwasi Kwarteng and Suella Braverman

Appointment of Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor of the Exchequer

Appointment of Grant Shapps as Home Secretary

Resignation of Liz Truss

October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election

### Preceded by

July 2022 United Kingdom government crisis

In September and October 2022, as Liz Truss' premiership got underway, the Conservative government of the United Kingdom faced a political credibility crisis. The crisis began after the 23 September 2022 United Kingdom mini-budget, which was received negatively by the world financial markets and ultimately led to the dismissal of the chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, on 14 October. In the following days, the prime minister, Liz Truss, came under increasing pressure to reverse further elements of the "mini budget" to satisfy the markets. Following the dismissal of Kwarteng, Jeremy Hunt was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in an attempt to deliver increased financial and political stability, and as a concession to rebellious elements of the Conservative Party. By 17 October, five Members of Parliament had called for her resignation.

On 19 October, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, resigned over a technical breach of the Ministerial Code, following a disagreement with Truss over immigration reform. Braverman's resignation letter was highly critical of Truss. That evening, MPs voted on an Opposition motionto create time to debate a ban on fracking in the United Kingdom, opposed by the government. The vote caused confusion among Conservative MPs who were not clear whether it was being treated as a confidence vote, or not, or whether the Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip had resigned, or not. There were also allegations that some of their colleagues had been manhandled in the voting lobby.

On 20 October, Truss announced that she would resign, but remain in office until the Conservative Party had chosen her successor as leader of the Party. The leadership election is expected to conclude on 28 October. Truss was in office for only 45 days before she announced her resignation, and her expected departure date would make her term the shortest overall of any prime minister in UK history, and the first to occur during the reign of King Charles III.

## Background

Following Boris Johnson's announcement of his intention to resign as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 7 July, Liz Truss won the subsequent Conservative party leadership election and became Prime Minister on 6 September. On 23 September, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng delivered a financial statement widely referred to as the mini-budget, which prompted significant negative market reaction — including the pound falling to a record low against the dollar and a sharp increase in the cost of government borrowing. This resulted in Truss dismissing Kwarteng as Chancellor on 14 October and appointing Jeremy Hunt as his replacement, who reversed most of the measures in the mini-budget.

According to the *Daily Telegraph*, there were at least five Conservative Members of Parliament(MPs) calling for the resignation of Liz Truss by 17 October. They were Crispin Blunt, Andrew Bridgen, Angela Richardson, Charles Walker and Jamie Wallis. In an interview with the BBC's Chris Mason that evening, Truss said she was "sorry for the mistakes that have been made" but remained "committed to the vision". She also said she would lead the Conservatives into the next UK general election. On 18 October, Lord Frost had also called for the Prime Minister to resign.

On 17 and 20 October, Truss had meetings with Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee. The meeting on 17 October was stated to have caused Truss to miss an urgent Prime Minister's Questions on the afternoon that same day requested by opposition leader Keir Starmer and granted by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, with Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, answering on Truss's behalf. Truss's absence drew criticism from a number of MPs, including Starmer, although Truss later made a brief appearance in the House.

## Resignations and dismissals

Kwasi Kwarteng was dismissed as Chancellor of the Exchequer on 14 October after only 38 days in post, and was succeeded by Jeremy Hunt. Chris Philp was also replaced by Edward Argar as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

On 19 October, Suella Braverman resigned as Home Secretary, subsequently being replaced by Grant Shapps.

On 20 October, Truss announced her intention to resign as Prime Minister.

## Parliament

On 19 October 2022, the Labour Party tabled a motion to introduce a bill to ban fracking in the United Kingdom. The motion was opposed and easily won by the government, with a majority of 96. Conservative Party whips had said this motion would be treated as a confidence vote. Soon after, William Wragg became the sixth MP to publicly call on the Prime Minister to go. Several Conservative MPs did not vote against the motion. During the vote, the Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Wendy Morton, and Deputy Chief Whip, Craig Whittaker, were both thought to have resigned with Whittaker saying: "I am fucking furious and I don't give a fuck anymore." Later, it was clarified that they had not, and remained in their posts.

An MP described the vote as "chaos" with claims, denied by cabinet ministers, that Conservative whips had manhandled and bullied backbenchers into voting against. Labour MP Chris Bryant made claims on Sky News saying that he saw MPs "physically manhandled through the voting lobby" naming Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Thérèse Coffey, along with Jacob Rees-Mogg, as those he saw in the "group". Later that evening, the House's speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, announced that he had asked the Serjeant at Arms and other parliamentary officials to investigate the allegations made about the incident.

## Reaction

### Opinion polls

Opinion polling showed a wide gap forming between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party following Truss's mini-budget. A YouGov survey of Conservative Party members published on 18 October reported that a majority of them wanted Truss to resign, with their favoured front runners for her replacement being Boris Johnson as most popular, followed in order by Ben Wallace, Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Kemi Badenoch, Jeremy Hunt and Suella Braverman.

### Bookmakers

As of mid-October, bookmakers were taking odds for the date of Truss's resignation. Bookmakers placed Sunak first in their list of likely Conservative prime ministerial successors, followed in order by Hunt, Mordaunt, Wallace and Johnson.

## Lettuce analogies

On 11 October, *The Economist* published an article criticising Truss, in which they commented that she had seven days in control of the economy. They wrote: "That is roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce." On 14 October, tabloid newspaper the *Daily Star* began a live stream on YouTube of a lettuce dressed as Truss to see if it would wilt before the Prime Minister resigned, which it did not. On 19 October, after Braverman's resignation, the lettuce was filmed with a plate of tofu to mock Braverman, who the previous day had attacked climate protest groups including Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil by describing them as "tofu-eating wokerati". In an interview with Sky News, Labour MP Chris Bryant attacked the government by saying: "We don't have a government. You might as well have, I mean, the lettuce might as well be running the country, or the tofu."