British Prime Minister Liz Truss said on Wednesday she was “a fighter, not a quitter” in response to opposition pressure to step down after the financial crisis that led to the rollback of promised tax cuts.
“I am a fighter, not a quitter. I have acted in the national interest to ensure economic stability,” he said in the weekly debate in the House of Commons, as some deputies called for “resignation”.
This was the first weekly parliamentary debate with Truss since newly appointed Treasury Secretary Jeremy Hunt canceled tax cuts introduced by the government less than a month ago.
Truss began by repeating an apology, acknowledging that he had made “mistakes” in economic strategy.
“But what is right in these circumstances is to make changes, what I did, and continue the work and fulfill” [os compromissos] with the British,” he emphasized.
Labor Party leader Keir Starmer said Truss “should not have conducted an economic experiment” in the country and as a result “millions of people” are being affected by rising mortgage interest rates.
“Last week the prime minister here promised that there would be absolutely no austerity measures. (…) This week the finance minister announced a new wave of austerity. What good is a prime minister whose promises are not right? ?” he joked.
A package of tax cuts announced on Sept. 23 with no convincing explanation of how to finance it caused turmoil in financial markets, causing the value of the pound to fall and UK government bond yields to rise.
The Bank of England was forced to intervene to prevent the crisis from spreading to the wider economy and endangering pension funds.
Under intense political and economic pressure, the prime minister last week fired ally Kwasi Kwarteng as finance minister, replacing him with Jeremy Hunt, a critic of Truss’s policies.
On Monday, after just three days in office, Hunt canceled nearly all of its announced tax cuts, changed its energy price guarantee package and reneged on a pledge not to cut government spending.
The minister said the government will have to save billions of pounds and make “many difficult decisions” in the medium-term budget plan, which is scheduled to be released on October 31.
In less than two months in office, Truss currently has the lowest popularity rating of any prime minister, with just 10% favorable opinions among Britons, according to a survey by YouGov.
In the most recent poll on voting intentions, conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, the Labor Party has 56% of the preferences, against 20% for the Conservative Party.
Source: DN
