Truss fires finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng

Liz Truss’s government has thrown Britain into chaos with her tax program. Truss is still being spared by her party, but her finance minister has to go.

Liz Truss will address the media on Friday at 3pm European time to explain the resignation of her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng.

Stefan Rousseau/AP

(dpa)/tsf. British Prime Minister Liz Truss has sacked her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng. The ousted Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed this on Twitter on Friday. “You asked me to step aside as minister, I accepted that,” writes Kwarteng in a letter addressed to Truss.

It is expected that Truss will explain Kwarteng’s departure in a press conference at 3:30 p.m. and at the same time announce his successor. In addition, Truss is likely to announce a reversal in fiscal policy and reverse the corporate tax hike announced by her predecessor.

With just five weeks in office, Kwarteng is the shortest serving British Chancellor since 1970. His successor would be the country’s fourth Chancellor of the Exchequer in as many months.

Finance Minister Kwarteng returns to London as an emergency

On Friday morning, Kwarteng returned to London abruptly from the IMF meeting in Washington. British diplomats in Washington could not remember the last time a UK Chancellor of the Exchequer had departed early from the annual high office of the global financial elite at the International Monetary Fund. What was clear, however, was that Kwarteng’s household had gotten out of joint and he had no other choice.

The Truss government has been facing harsh criticism from within its own ranks for weeks. The reason for this is Kwarteng’s budget, which was only financed with debt and which had triggered severe market turbulence. After fierce protests, including from leading Tories, Truss and Kwarteng reversed the abolition of the top tax rate.

Truss doesn’t seem to get anywhere with the voters anymore. In a survey by the opinion research institute Yougov for the “Times”, 50 percent were in favor of putting Truss in front of the door, only 9 percent supported the head of government.


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