British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation, outside Number 10 Downing Street, in London, on Oct. 20.HENRY NICHOLLS/Reuters
Tom Rachman is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Days ago, a British tabloid began live-streaming footage of the U.K. Prime Minister’s framed photo beside a wilting vegetable, posing a question that bedevilled the nation: “Can Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?”
The smart money was on the lettuce.
Ms. Truss – who resigned Thursday, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history after six weeks in power – barely dragged herself through these past few days. In power yet already deprived of power, she was officially the Prime Minister but was treated like a salad ingredient, and asked to do as little harm as possible.
Even at that, she failed.
Already, Ms. Truss had crashed the economy. Already, she was the most unpopular prime minister on record. In desperation, she’d fired her top cabinet minister; another stormed out after a shouting match. By Wednesday evening, Ms. Truss oversaw a parliamentary vote that will live in infamy, her allies bullying and manhandling fellow Conservative Party MPs – some crying – until they sided with her to support fracking.
“It is utterly appalling. And, you know, I really shouldn’t say this, but I hope all those people that put Liz Truss in Number 10, I hope it was worth it,” raged a long-time Tory MP, Charles Walker, his voice trembling. “I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of talentless people.”
But this disgrace is not for Ms. Truss alone. This disgrace has enveloped Britain. It is the culmination of six woeful years sparked by the vote for Brexit, which hastened the decline of a major power while thrusting dunces and charlatans into command.
This latest wilting of national dignity began Sept. 23, after the Truss administration presented a fiscal plan to enrich the already-rich. Financiers aren’t necessarily horrified by such ideas, but these tax cuts for millionaires came at a time of wretched finances, and the government never explained how it’d afford such measures. The markets heaved and vomited back the plan, trusting Team Truss as you trust a crocodile with your toddler.
The pound plummeted, and investors who buy government bonds spoke of “the moron risk” when considering those barmy Brits. Ordinary citizens saw their mortgages forecast to rise an average of £3,500 (about $5,400) by the end of 2024, including £800 ($1,250) thanks to Trussonomics.
“Ideology met reality,” another veteran Conservative MP, Andrew Mitchell, reflected. “As always, reality won.”
This ideology emerged from a fever dream of Brexit nationalism: that the United Kingdom had been cruelly manacled by the European Union; that, once liberated, it’d slash taxes and drop regulations, a buccaneering global powerhouse once more!
In truth, Brexit just punctured the economy, reducing growth by billions annually, raising the price of imports, and hammering British exporters because of the lunacy of erecting a wall between yourself and your largest trading partner.
Once Ms. Truss had trashed the ailing economy further, she hid, speaking as rarely as possible, which made sense when you heard her evasions and awkward … pauses. With every utterance, the markets seemed to fall.
So a very British coup ensued last week: no Kalashnikovs, just a polite confiscation of the economy from butterfingers, and the installation of a new chancellor, the experienced Tory politician Jeremy Hunt. A trim marathon runner, Mr. Hunt speaks with the calm urgency of an undertaker upselling you on the casket. Immediately, he reversed nearly every Truss measure; markets stabilized.
But Tories couldn’t yet dispose of the lettuce-in-chief, unable to agree on a replacement, whether Rishi Sunak, or Penny Mordaunt, or Mr. Hunt himself. Fans of mayhem fancy a return of Boris. Now her resignation has triggered a party-leadership contest; the result comes within a week. What terrifies Conservative MPs is that this utter shambles will intensify calls for early elections, which they will lose in a landslide.
Sadly, Britain cannot simply vote this mess off the island. Besides the continuing costs of Brexit, this latest loss of credibility means billions more frittered on higher borrowing costs. Cuts to public services are coming, even though the National Health Service is in tatters, the police scarcely turn up and teachers are coping with hungry pupils each morning.
This winter is frightening – not only for soaring energy prices, but for the cost of food, up 14.5 per cent compared with last year. Power blackouts are expected, along with strikes in airports and railways.
One economic boost is obvious, yet few dare speak its name: rejoining the EU. A majority of Britons now want this, but the opposition Labour Party – preparing to govern – dreads inflaming that bitter dispute, pledging instead to “make Brexit work,” which is like saying you’ll make self-harm work.
Britain must summon courage now, and view itself honestly. Government by lettuce, it turns out, leads only to the compost heap.
A humbling was due. A humbling is here.