On October 20, 2022, local time, British Prime Minister Trass delivered a speech at 10 Downing Street, central London, and announced his resignation.

On October 20, 2022, London, UK, British Prime Minister Tras delivered a speech at 10 Downing Street, central London, announcing his resignation. Visual China Picture

On the evening of October 20, Beijing time, under the pressure of overwhelming pressure inside and outside the party, British Prime Minister Tras, who had only been in office for 45 days, announced that he would resign as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister since World War II . In fact, just one day ago, Tras declared himself "a warrior, not a deserter" in House of Commons, and insisted that he would lead Conservative Party to the next general election. However, Trass's last attempt did not calm the urge to cede the storm inside and outside the party, and he had no choice but to take the initiative to resign to leave a relatively elegant back of stepping down.

Tras is not a tough Conservative "true love"

Although the throne of the prime minister has been shaky in recent times, the outside world is still a little surprised byTras's dramatic resignation. Although Trass' mini budget caused the three markets of foreign exchange, stock and bond markets to fall, she had already made a heroic dismissal decision to quell the outside world's criticism from her friend, Chancellor Kwoten. In addition, more than a month after the Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader were replaced, as the successor of former Prime Minister Johnson , if he was ousted again, it would likely affect the people's trust in the Conservative Party as a stable and reliable ruling party - perhaps Tras' opponents do not mind this, but the middle forces within the party may not be jealous of this. Finally, before she resigned, it was not clear how tenacious Trass's own political will was. After all, Tras also has the protection of Conservative Party internal rules that "the party leader shall not be removed for less than one year of office." To amend this internal rules, more than two-thirds of the Conservative Party MPs are required to support it, which is a very high threshold. Therefore, if Tras refused to resign, it would still be a difficult job to remove her.

However, in addition to the surprise, in fact, Trass' resignation can detect many hidden lines from the beginning of his coming to power. The most important basis is that Tras lacks a solid party foundation from beginning to end. After former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak and others forced Johnson to resign, the election of the Conservative Party leader became a moderate Conservative party who supported Sunak ("one country conservatives", which focused on social cohesion within the UK, advocated promoting and maintaining a harmonious state between different interest groups, classes, races, religious groups, etc. in society, and was often classified as a centrist or moderate) and Trass, who represented the Thatcherist (the faction supported Thatcher's neoliberal line and a tough line against EU ).

Although Tras won in the end, the gap between his leadership of Sunak was much smaller than expected by the outside world, which also made Tras' victory look glorious. More importantly, Tras has never been the "dear" of the tough conservatives of Thatcherism, and Johnson is the "true love" of the tough conservatives. Therefore, although Johnson resigned, he did not announce his withdrawal from politics. The hardliner Conservatives who support Johnson knew more about the fact that "Johnson is currently lurking and waiting for it." Therefore, as Johnson's "spare tire", Tras did not receive unreserved support from tough conservatives - this can also be seen from the results of a poll against Conservative Party members after Tras was elected: The poll showed that only 17% of the party members believed that Tras would be better than Johnson, and 34% of the party members believed that Tras was not as good as Johnson (another 31% believed that the two were the same). Therefore, once the tough conservatives realize that the Conservatives are beginning to miss Johnson and if Tras fails at this time, it is the best time to force Tras to "repay the big power."

Interestingly, just when Tras suffered a start to lose his prime ministerial career, a poll by YouGov showed that Johnson ranked first among the candidates for the Conservative Party leader with 32% support, and Sunak ranked second with 23%. Therefore, the tough Conservatives who once sent Tras to , 10 Downing Street, , have now joined the ranks of forced palaces, and Tras' fragile party foundation has completely collapsed.

The battle for the leader of the Conservative Party may become more chaotic and disorderly

In addition, Tras's "U-shaped turn" on the fiscal reform plan has also made the hard-line Conservatives who already have doubts about Tras's position very angry. During the party leader election, Tras's "chameleon" experience has also become a hot topic: she has gone from a liberal Democrat who supports the republicanism and legalization of marijuana to a Conservative party member, and she has suddenly become a resigned party in 2016 to a Brexit who is tougher than Johnson to the EU; she "passionately supports almost all the ideology that can be imagined." After her economic reform plan suffered a heavy blow, she quickly appointed a secretary of the Chancellor of the "one-country Conservative" faction, a "one-country Conservative" faction, and let Hunter abolish almost all the economic reform plans of the Thatcher's line, and even proposed to raise corporate income taxes and increase taxes to banks and energy companies such as oil and gas.

In the eyes of tough conservatives, Tras's "U-shaped turn" confirms their suspicion of the " Chameleon " attributes. Appointing opposing tax increasers as Finance Minister makes tough conservatives feel that they were deceived at the beginning. Therefore, when the Sunak faction MPs launched a forced palace operation against Tras, the hardliners and Conservative MPs actually either looked at the wall or took the blame. Faced with Trass, party members are almost the only two categories of "openly forcing the palace" and "seen with each other". Under such a situation, it is impossible for Tras to continue to lead a stable cabinet. Instead of dragging it on, the hard-line MPs who are "unlike" also join the ranks of "openly forcing palaces", and seeking to leave is the last decent.

In my opinion, a question about the stable operation of the British government system when Tras resigned was that, after Johnson, Tras, as the leader and prime minister of the Conservative Party, was also forced to step down during the "one-year protection period".

According to the current rules of the Conservative Party, the new leader cannot be challenged in his first year of office; and if the motion of distrust against the leader within the party is not passed, no motion of distrust against the leader shall be initiated again within one year. The Conservative Party’s motion for distrust against Johnson was not passed in June this year, but a month later, Johnson announced his resignation under the pressure of the cabinet resignation wave. Johnson's ex-Hand Theresa May also survived the party's distrust vote in December 2018. Five months later, May announced his resignation. However, May's resignation was mainly because the Brexit agreement was rejected in parliament, which was different from the situation where Johnson and Tras were "forced to the palace".

The encounter between Johnson and Trass means that the Conservative Party gave the leader and prime minister a year of "government protection period" has actually been greatly reduced, and even in name only and without abandonment. In other words, the internal rules established by the Conservative Party to ensure the stability of leadership in the past can actually be unable to stabilize the leadership of the Conservative Party leader. The consequence may be that after Tras stepped down, no matter who takes over as the party leader and becomes the new prime minister in the future, his governance will be constrained by the consideration of "stable leadership". In addition, since you don’t have to wait a year to challenge the party leader and prime minister, it also means that the Conservative Party leader’s battle for the future is likely to enter a more chaotic and disorderly state, which is likely to become a hidden concern for the stable operation of the British government in the future.

(Yang Guodong, Teacher of the School of Administrative Law, Southwest University of Political Science and Law)