Will Liz Truss Be UK's Shortest-Serving Prime Minister?

Liz Truss could end up being the shortest-serving British prime minister in history as dissatisfaction with her leadership continues to mount.

While the United Kingdom's Conservative Party—under its current rules—can't replace Truss until she has served a full year, news outlets in the U.K. are reporting that some Conservative members of parliament (MPs) are deeply dissatisfied with her. Truss was appointed as the new prime minister on September 6, replacing Boris Johnson.

The Scotsman reported Thursday that some Tory MPs are sending letters of "no-confidence" to the chair of the 1922 Committee, which is the panel that sets the Conservative Party's rules.

"'If the 22 changed the rules, we'd hit the threshold for a confidence vote in a couple of hours'", a Tory MP tells me," Henry Zeffman, associate political editor at The Times, wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "Safe to say the mood is sulphurous in parliament this morning."

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that some Conservative MPs are calling for Truss to resign after she made a statement following the ousting of a Cabinet official.

On Friday, Truss fired her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, and reversed 20 billion pounds ($22 billion) of a proposed tax cut plan, which had caused financial market turmoil. Reuters reported that the prime minister said the plan went "further and faster" than investors expected.

"I have acted decisively today because my priority is ensuring our country's economic stability," she reportedly said. "I want to be honest, this is difficult. But we will get through this storm."

Peter Harris, associate professor of political science at Colorado State University, said in an interview with Newsweek on Friday that there's "definitely a reasonable chance that she's out of office within a few weeks, which would make [her] the shortest serving Prime Minister in modern history."

"If I was if I was a Conservative member of Parliament, I would want to get rid of her as soon as possible and just give somebody, anybody, a chance to turn things around," Harris said.

According to the U.K.'s Press Association, the shortest serving British prime minister is George Canning who was in office for 118 days before he died in 1827.

While Harris said Conservative MPs could change their rules and replace Truss as a leader, he said it's more likely that the British government could see high-ranking Cabinet ministers and other party officials resign and call on her to step down.

"If she has a hard time filling Cabinet posts...then she'll have to resign," he added.

Harris said that Truss came into office with a pledge to cut taxes and increase levels of public spending on issues, including the country's energy crisis, without explaining a way to pay for the proposals.

"You can't cut taxes and spend more. That means you have to borrow a lot of money... And she didn't really spell out what she would do. And I think that that was the problem," Harris said. "Markets wanted to see that she had a credible plan to not just borrow indefinitely and endlessly."

Laura Beers, a professor of British history at American University, said in an interview with Newsweek on Friday that she doesn't believe the Conservative Party will act to replace Truss because they'll want to avoid a general election.

Beers said that if Truss is replaced with another leader, it will mark the second prime minister the Conservatives have put in place since they were voted into office in 2019.

"If they get rid of her it becomes, I think, very difficult to avoid the clamor for a general election. They will have then changed prime ministers without consulting the public twice since the last election," Beers said, who added that the party won't "bring down" Truss' government because if an election was held tomorrow, they would lose in a "landslide."

"So the best hope that they have is realistically, probably just to hang on for dear life for two years and hope the economy turns around and she doesn't make things even worse," Beers said.

Recent polling has shown the Conservative Party performing poorly, and the Labour Party leading in popularity under Truss' government. A YouGov poll released this week found 51 percent of respondents saying they'd support the Labour Party if an election were held tomorrow, while only 23 percent said they'd vote for the Conservative Party.

James Cronin, a research professor at Boston College who specializes in British and European history, told Newsweek that there has never been a British government that's "blown up so quickly and so spectacularly."

"The wounds were all self-inflicted: Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer worked closely together, and without consulting Cabinet colleagues or the wider Conservative Party, to draw up the disastrous 'mini-budget' that has sent the pound on its downward course," Cronin wrote. "The Tories are famously ruthless in getting rid of leaders who are likely to lead them to electoral defeat. If the pattern holds, Truss could be gone next week."

Newsweek has reached out to Truss' office for comment.