United Kingdom Prime Minister Liz Truss stood defiant amid calls for her to resign from office after just weeks on the job.
Truss is under pressure after her new administration announced they were reversing course on planned tax cuts after U.K. markets responded poorly, and the British Pound dropped in value. Labor Party leader Keir Starmer blasted Truss and her policies on Wednesday and questioned why she is even in office.
“It was a mandate built on fantasy economics, and it ended in disaster,” Starmer said before listing scrapped plans like the corporation tax cut, tax-free shopping, and a two-year energy freeze, shouting, “Gone!” after each one, joined by his colleagues.
“Economic credibility, gone!” he added.
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“And her supposed best friend, the former chancellor, he’s gone as well,” Starmer said. “They’re all gone, so why is she still here?”
Truss was quick to respond to the vitriol, taking the podium.
“Mr. Speaker, I am a fighter and not a quitter,” Truss declared to a chorus of cheers from her supporters. She went on to defend her recent actions.
Liz Truss meets supporters at a Conservative Party leadership election hustings at the NEC, Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022.
(AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)
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“I have acted in the national interests to make sure that we have economic stability,” she said.
Truss had initially pushed to eliminate the U.K.’s top tax bracket, effectively cutting taxes for citizens making more than $168,000 per year. While she scrapped that plan in early October, it did little to stabilize markets. Her walk-backs have succeeded in increasing the Pound’s value from $1.03 to $1.12.
She was ultimately pushed to fire her Treasury chief and longtime friend, Kwasi Kwarteng, last week. She also walked back a promise to cancel an increase in taxes on corporations.
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President Biden weighed in, criticizing Truss’s plans while speaking with reporters in Oregon on Saturday.
“I was not the only one that thought it was a mistake,” Biden said. “I think the idea of cutting taxes on the super-wealthy at a time when — anyway, I disagreed with the policy, but that’s up to Great Britain to make that judgment, not me,” he said.
Fox News’s Anders Hagstrom and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
