On September 6, the new British Prime Minister Tras, who delivered an inauguration speech outside 10 Downing Street, London, was full of confidence and promised to lead the UK through the "storm" and rebuild the economy.

Source: China News Network

On September 6, the new British Prime Minister Tras, who delivered an inauguration speech outside of 10 Downing Street, London, was full of confidence and promised to lead the UK through the "storm" and rebuild the economy. But just over a month later, at the same location, Tras announced his resignation and would leave in disgrace. This third British female prime minister, who was known as the "New Iron Lady" by the outside world, took office for only 45 days and became the shortest-term prime minister in the UK.

took office for only 45 days,

Tras announced her resignation

On October 20th local time, British Prime Minister Tras announced his resignation in a speech at Downing Street , saying that in view of the current situation, she was unable to fulfill her duties when she was elected. In her speech, Tras said she was in office in a "time of extremely economic and international instability." Britain has been dragged down by low economic growth for too long, and her party elected her to "change this situation."

She said her administration fulfilled the Energy Act and cuts national insurance and laid out a vision of a “low tax and high growth economy”. But she added: "I admit... under this situation, I cannot fulfill my duty to elect my Conservative Party ." After Tras announced his resignation, Graham Brady, chairman of the "1922 Committee" of the lower house of parliament, said he hopes to see the new prime minister's result by next Friday (October 28).

fulfilled its promise and frightened the market

took over No. 10 Downing Street , after Tras immediately gave a promise to "change the UK", proposing three "priorities" of tax cuts, responding to the energy crisis and rectifying the national health system.

Then, she announced the government's emergency energy plan in Parliament, which plans to control the average household gas and electricity bills to £2,500 per year. At the end of September, the Trass government announced a series of policies, including large-scale tax cuts, lifting the banking industry bonus ceiling, energy subsidies and exploitation of oil and natural gas , hoping to boost the UK economy, which is about to fall into recession.

Tras seems to have fulfilled his promise, but these "bold" policies have attracted a lot of doubts from the outside world, market confidence has dropped sharply, and the exchange rate of the pound against the US dollar once fell to the lowest record.

Even International Monetary Fund (IMF) has come forward to criticize, saying that this "uncontrollable" tax cut plan may aggravate inequality, undermine monetary policy, and aggravate global inflation .

US President Biden also publicly stated that Tras' economic plan is "a mistake" and that he is "not the only one" who thinks so.

In the context of Feder tough interest rate hikes, turbulent situation in Russia and Ukraine, and the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet gone, the Bank of England adopts radical monetary tightening policies (rate hikes), and the British government introduces radical fiscal expansion policies (tax cuts), "fighting between left and right", which makes the already difficult British economy worse.

"made a mistake".

Tras triggered a crisis of resignation

Economic policies triggered dissatisfaction and led to a decline in support rates. It has been staged in the previous period of the Johnson administration, butTras failed to get rid of the same predicament.

In order to alleviate the financial turmoil caused by the "mini budget" and the criticism of the outside world, Tras asked his Chancellor Kwoten to resign and replace him with former Foreign Minister Hunter Hunter, who once supported his opponent Sunak , overturning almost all tax cuts. However, Sky News pointed out that after Tras overturned previous policies and changed the original Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was no firewall between the Prime Minister and her angry parliamentary parties.

polls give attitudes in a more straightforward way.Data released by YouGov regularly shows that after the introduction of the new Trass policy on September 27, the support rate of the ruling Conservative Party of Britain lags behind the opposition Labor Party by 17 percentage points; by September 30, the Labour Party led the Conservative Party by 33 percentage points, showing the biggest gap since the 1990s.

's support rate has been declining again and again, and Tras eventually triggered the crisis of resignation.

Why is the British political arena fluctuating?

The crisis that Tras encountered actually laid the foreshadowing in the election battle this summer.

Against the backdrop of rising energy prices, economic crisis, the sequelae of "Brexit", strikes caused by the cost of living crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic that caused the medical system to be under great pressure, the British media predicted at the time that "the new prime minister (after Johnson ) may face one of the shortest political honeymoon periods in modern history."

Tras won the election smoothly, but failed to "take up" the challenge. She was eager to fulfill the slogans "tax cuts" and "controlling energy prices" she shouted during the election campaign. These beautiful ideas brought about some policies with insufficient basis, which led to repeated repetitions of the new government's governance, which not only failed to directly solve the problem, but also caused a crisis of trust among the people in the government. This situation also reflects some problems in British politics. Cui Hongjian, director of the European Institute of the China Institute of International Studies, believes that this shows that in current British politics, "the so-called procedural democracy replaces the individual ability of politicians."

At present, "The UK has entered a relatively populist environment. Ordinary people like to hear politicians cater to their opinions, while politicians in turn take the initiative to cater to voters." Cui Hongjian analyzed that in this way, the continuity and stability of the original policy have been abandoned.

Since the launch of the "Brexit" agenda, the UK has changed four prime ministers in the past six years. These four "unconventional Prime Minister changes" also reflect a situation where as long as the Conservative Party can continue to control the majority in parliament, it can continue to rule through internal replacements.

Cui Hongjian said that on the surface, the vote supports the legitimacy of the Conservative Party's governance, but in the current situation where the Conservative Party is constantly undergoing internal replacements, British politics may be forming a certain "black hole" phenomenon, which is very unfavorable to the prospects of Britain itself.

Edited by: Park Lina