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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Nadeem Badshah, Andrew Sparrow, Léonie Chao-Fong and Graham Russell

Liz Truss quits: candidates to be prime minister must have at least 100 nominations from Tory MPs – as it happened

Liz Truss AnneMarie Trevelyan Suella Braverman Fracking Grant Shapps ​​Rishi Sunak United Kingdom Robert Peston Wendy Morton Charles Walker

A summary of today's developments

  • Liz Truss resigned as prime minister after just 45 days in office. Truss will be the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history. She said: “I recognise though given the situation I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party.”

  • Nominations for the next PM opened tonight and will close at 2pm on Monday. Candidates will need a minimum of 100 nominations to proceed to the ballot. There will be an indicative vote of MPs once there are two candidates.

  • The first ballot of MPs will then be held between 3.30pm and 5.30pm on Monday. If there are three candidates, the candidate with the fewest number of votes will be eliminated.

  • The result will be announced at 6pm on Monday. If a second vote is needed (indicative), this will be held between 6.30-8.30pm on Monday. The result will be announced at 9pm.

  • If there are two candidates, the Tory membership will get to vote again and a winner will be picked by Friday.

  • Labour leader Keir Starmer said his party has a manifesto “ready to go” if there is an early election. He told the BBC if the Tories were to replace Liz Truss with Boris Johnson, that would make the case for an early election even stronger. The Liberal Democrats say the Conservative party should block Boris Johnson from standing again.

  • A senior MP in Rishi Sunak’s previous leadership campaign said they expect him to stand again, according to the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot.

  • Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman are also expected to stand as leadership candidates.

  • Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, have been ruled out of the leadership race.

Updated

Former education secretary Justine Greening tells Newsnight where the Conservatives have gone wrong.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, from the 1922 Committee, on the party’s failure to unite around Liz Truss.

Updated

The official account of the Ukraine government has tweeted a picture endorsing Boris Johnson in a mockup of Breaking Bad prequel series Better Call Saul.

Friday’s Mail.

The front page of Friday’s Guardian.

The Mirror calls for a general election.

Friday’s Financial Times.

The front of the Metro newspaper.

The front page of the i.

Friday’s Telegraph.

Here is a roundup of some of Friday’s front pages starting with the Daily Record.

Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley, hopes his son will run to become prime minister again.

Johnson senior told TalkTV’s Piers Morgan Uncensored: “Frankly I have no idea whether Boris is going to be a candidate in this election, no idea at all, but I think he has a very strong record to be considered as a viable candidate and I very much hope he will let his name go forward.”

Updated

Here is Nadine Dorries’s glowing endorsement of a Boris Johnson return.

Updated

Former Brexit secretary David Davis believes Boris Johnson should stay on his Caribbean holiday rather than making a last-minute dash to the UK.

“I’d say go back to the beach, frankly,” Davis told Andrew Marr.

“We’ve got really big technical economic problems to solve. He’s not qualified for that.”

Davis, who was one of the first to call for Johnson to resign, said he didn’t believe the former prime minister could get to the last round.

“You need absolutely rock solid support in the House of Commons … I don’t think he has that support,” he said.

Updated

A roundup of all the political developments in the UK and in Australia.

The Tory party chairman, Sir Jake Berry, insisted the online membership vote to choose a new leader and the next prime minister would be “secure”, just months after the process was revamped over hacking concerns.

Speaking outside parliament, he declined to give details on the safeguards in place but said he was “satisfied” there would not be any cybersecurity issues in the contest to replace Liz Truss.

Questioned on safety concerns over the binding online vote, Berry said: “Without going into the security measures we will take ... we are satisfied that the online voting system will be secure.”

He added that “all efforts would be made” to reach members who did not have access to the internet.

The Guardian reported earlier today that the National Cyber Security Centre had contacted the Conservative party over its leadership voting preparations, amid concerns a rogue state could attempt to interfere with the contest.

In the previous Tory leadership race over the summer, party members were initially told they could vote by post and amend their decision online until the system was reformed in early August.

The NCSC had warned that the process was vulnerable to interference, forcing the party to delay sending out ballot slips.

Updated

Nadine Dorries, an ardent Boris Johnson backer, said she had spoken to the former prime minister at lunchtime.

Asked whether she had spoken to Johnson about whether he intended to stand in the leadership contest, she said: “It’s now down to MPs to decide who it is that they want to back.

“There is only one MP who has the mandate of the British public, who won a general election only three years ago with an 80-seat majority and that was Boris Johnson.”

Updated

Here is a video of “highlights” from the last 25 hours of Liz Truss’s premiership.

Speaking on BBC’s Question Time, the minister for climate, Graham Stuart, said the Tories were doing some soul-searching.

He apologised to the Cheltenham audience and to the country for the “instability” caused.

“On the inside track it hasn’t been comfortable,” he said. “We are facing many challenges.”

Updated

A poll for the ITV programme Peston found that the public think Sir Keir Starmer would be a better prime minister than any of the potential next Conservative party leaders.

Updated

The UK is heading for its third prime minister in eight weeks. In the 45 days that Liz Truss has been in power, the country has been rocked by the death of Queen Elizabeth II and suffered an economic crisis exacerbated by the PM’s first moves, with a series of senior ministers appointed then sacked. If you have been watching UK politics only distantly, here is a catch-up on what has been happening.

The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, has spoken of his frustration at “being back to instability again” in terms of relations with the UK following the resignation of Liz Truss.

He said the mood music had improved recently, adding he had met the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, on multiple occasions in recent weeks.

“The meetings between Liz Truss and the taoiseach were also much better in terms of tone than we had seen for some time,” Coveney told RTÉ.

“The frustration for us is we are back to instability again. I had the privilege of being foreign minister for five years. In that time I have dealt with six secretaries of state for Northern Ireland, five foreign secretaries and now it’s going to be four prime ministers.

“And we’re trying to get complex issues negotiated and we’re trying to find compromises in a very heated and difficult political environment, particularly in the context of Northern Ireland.

“From an Irish perspective this isn’t really about the personalities, it’s about stability and about having a partner to negotiate with that can help us solve problems together.”

Updated

Here is Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1992 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, outlining the process for the party’s leadership contest.

The National Cyber Security Centre has contacted the Conservative party over its leadership voting preparations, amid concerns a rogue state could attempt to interfere with the contest.

The party delayed sending out ballots for the previous leadership vote in August after an intervention by the NCSC, which resulted in the Conservatives enhancing security around the voting process, and the agency has been in touch with the party again today. The vote by the Tory membership next week will be conducted online.

An NCSC spokesperson said: “As the UK’s national technical authority for cyber security we continue to provide advice to the Conservative party, including on security considerations for online leadership voting.”

One expert said one aim of a cyberattack on the voting process would be to discredit the process rather than influence the result.

“All they need to do is discredit the process,” said Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University. “They don’t need to influence the result, they just need to damage people’s trust in the process. And that damages people’s trust in democracy.”

Updated

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, told Sky News the 1922 Committee looked like “rabbits in the headlights” after appearing in front of the press, and “they haven’t got a clue what they are doing”.

She added: “The scary thing is we could have a situation where we have a prime minister of this country with zero mandate.”

Rayner also described the situation engulfing the Conservative party as “utter chaos” which has left her “frustrated and angry”.

Updated

Here is the full story on Boris Johnson considering putting his hat in the ring:

Johnson is considering running again to be the UK’s prime minister after Liz Truss’s dramatic resignation, with rightwing Conservative MPs and party donors already backing his nascent campaign, write Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot.

The former leader, who quit in July following a series of scandals that left his personal integrity in tatters, was expected to fly back from the Caribbean where he has been on holiday with his family.

One ally told the Guardian that Johnson felt it was in the “national interest” for him to stage a return. Another said the Tory heavyweight felt his premiership had been unfairly “cut off before its time” and that he still had plenty to do at No 10.

However, the Conservative party announcement that the threshold to reach the ballot paper would be the support of 100 MPs made the prospect of Johnson running again less likely, with some Tory MPs suggesting he could be wasting his energy by running.

Updated

Pressed on Labour’s demands for a general election and what mandate the next Tory prime minister will have without one, the levelling up minister Paul Scully said: “People elected a government, this is not a presidential system.

“Of course Labour want a general election but what you will find is that when the (Conservative) party get their strong leader, eventually things will turn to what Labour have to offer.

“And I think Keir Starmer and the Labour party will be found wanting because they can chip away, as an opposition would do, but we’ve got to deliver for people and I’m not sure I’ve seen anything from the Labour party that suggests they’ve got any vision.”

Updated

Reacting to Liz Truss announcing her resignation, the levelling up minister Paul Scully told PA Media: “It’s the right thing to do. It’s sad; it’s always sad when you see someone that’s worked so hard to get to her position try to deliver for the country, not be able to bring the party together and do that final push to support people.

“But we now need to move on. We are here not for our own individual careers, we are here for the country and the people we represent and that’s what we’ve got to crack on and do now.”

On reports the former prime minister Boris Johnson could run, he said: “I suspect what will happen is we’ll look afresh, there is a lot of talent looking to stand, let’s see what happens over the next few days.”

Updated

Who will benefit most from Tory election rules?

Earlier today Ladbrokes had Rishi Sunak as favourite to become the next Tory leader, on 5/6. The next favourite candidates were (in order) Penny Mordaunt, Boris Johnson and Ben Wallace.

The rules announced by the party for the contest are unlikely to shift Sunak from the top spot. The key decision is the requirement for candidates to be nominated by 100 MPs, making it unlikely that Johnson will be able to stand as a candidate. In a ballot of members, Johnson would win, and there are bound to be claims that the threshold has deliberately been set this high to keep him out of the contest.

It is also hard to see a rightwing candidate, such as Suella Braverman or Kemi Badenoch, getting 100 nominations.

You can see the results of every round of voting in the summer contest here. Sunak got 137 votes in the final ballot, and he should have no problem getting 100 nominations by Monday – particularly since his economic warnings from the summer have been vindicated. Mordaunt got 105 votes in the final round, and she is certainly a contender too – not least because her parliamentary performance on Monday impressed many colleagues.

But in the summer Wallace was not standing. This time he has indicated he is interested, and it conceivable that he could get 100 nominations as a non-Sunak candidate instead of, or as well as, Mordaunt.

It is equally possible that, if the leading figures struggle to get 100 names, they could all end up backing the frontrunner, who at the moment is Sunak. This is what some Tories want. (See 5.41pm.)

If members do end up having to choose between one of Sunak, Mordaunt or Wallace, recent YouGov polling suggests they will go for Sunak.

That is all from me for today. My colleague Nadeem Badshah is taking over now.

Updated

Timings for two potential leadership election ballots for Tory MPs on Monday

The Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ) has just released a note with a few more details about the leadership election process. Here is the key passage:

Nominations open tonight and will close at 1400hrs Monday 24 October 2022.

Candidates will need a minimum of 100 nominations to proceed to the ballot.

There will be an indicative vote of MPs once there are two candidates.

The first ballot of MPs will then be held between 1530 and 1730 on Monday 24. If there are three candidates, the candidate with the fewest number of votes will be eliminated. The result will be announced at 1800hrs. If a second vote is needed (indicative), this will be held between 1830 and 2030 on Monday 24. The result will be announced at 2100.

Sir Graham Brady MP will act as returning officer for the election.

Once the parliamentary process is completed, CCHQ will assume responsibility for the administration of the vote of the Conservative party membership, as long as two candidates remain. The ballot of party members will be conducted via secure online voting and we have already held discussions with the NCSC [National Cyber Security Centre] regarding this. The ballot will close at 1100hrs on Friday 28 October – the result will be announced later that day. Only qualifying members, who have been a member for at least three months, can vote.

If candidates need 100 nominations, at most there could be three candidates. It is more likely that there will be just two, or perhaps even one.

But if there are three candidates, there will be two votes. The first vote will be to eliminate the least popular candidate. Then there will be a second, “indicative” vote. This will allow party members to know which of the two final candidates is most popular with MPs. (See 3.20pm.)

Updated

Nominations for Tory leadership election to close at 2pm on Monday, with MPs voting later that day

At this open-air briefing Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee, also said nominations would close at 2pm on Monday.

He said ballots of MPs would take place on Monday. And when it was down to two candidates, there would be an indicative ballot, he said.

Jake Berry, the Tory chair, said there would be an online ballot of members if two candidates were left after the ballot of MPs.

We have decided that if the party should decide to put forward two candidates there would be an expedited, binding, online vote of Conservative party members to choose its next leader.

He said all stages of the contest would be over by next Friday, 28 October. If members have to choose, there will be at least one broadcast event, so that members can hear from the candidates, he said.

Updated

Key event

Tim Loughton, a former minister, told Radio 4’s PM programme that he wanted Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt and Ben Wallace – whom he described as the four “big beasts” in the party – to form an alliance and agree who should be prime minister. He said:

If those four people can come together and agree as to which one of them is going to be the prime minister candidate, then we won’t have to have an election, and then it’s incumbent on all of my parliamentary colleagues to weigh in behind them, and we can get back to some degree of normality.

When asked if that would be acceptable to rightwingers such as Suella Braverman, who wants to stand herself, Loughton replied:

People need to park all those egos. They need to put aside all the baggage and all the prejudices they might have had about certain candidates in the past. This is a really urgent situation, urgent for the Conservative party, or parliament, most importantly for the country. We need to have a united and talented cabinet of grownups who come together and get us back on course.

This may have been what Theresa May meant with her “compromise” message to Tory MPs. See 4.10pm.

Updated

If only one candidate gets 100 nominations, that person becomes PM, Tory chair says

Brady says there will be a hustings on Monday for Tory MP, in private.

Q: If only one candidate gets 100 nominations, are they the next leader?

Yes, Berry says.

Tory leadership candidates will need 100 MP nominations to stand, Graham Brady says

Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committe, is holding a briefing for journalists outside parliament with Jake Berry, the party chairman.

They are taking questions now.

Q: What is your message to the public? And do you want a unity candidate?

Berry says it is up to MPs to decide if there is one or two candidates. If there are two, members will get a choice.

Q: Are you stitching up the rules to keep Boris Johnson off the ballot?

Brady says the threshold for nomination is 100 supporters. That means there could be three candidates, he says.

Anyone hoping to snap up one of the £14.99 Liz Truss mugs branded with “In Liz We Truss” from the Tory party’s official shop will be disappointed. They’ve been withdrawn in the wake of the prime minister’s resignation.

Potential investors going to the web page of the Conservative party shop which once hosted the items are greeted with a “404” message and an “Opps! Have no idea what just happened”.

In fact, all Truss-related memorabilia appears to have been expunged from the website’s “Leaders” section, where a range of Boris Johnson-related merchandise including toby jugs, a Brexit jigsaw and clothing are still available.

“In Liz We Truss” mugs on sale at the Tory conference.
“In Liz We Truss” mugs on sale at the Tory conference. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Updated

Journalists in Downing Street this afternoon.
Journalists in Downing Street this afternoon. Photograph: James Manning/PA

Tory party could be finished if this leadership election goes wrong, MPs warn

Robert Jenrick, the former communities secretary, has said the Conservative party could “cease to exist” if it messes up this leadership election. In an interview with the News Agent podcast, he said:

This isn’t an ordinary leadership contest. It’s more extraordinary than the one we had in the summer.

If we get this wrong, the country will face a very serious period of further instability and the Conservative party will lose the next general election; potentially cease to exist.

The Tory MP Mark Garnier said much the same on Radio 4’s PM programme a few minutes ago. He said:

This is an existential moment, I suspect, of the Conservative party. If we don’t come together and recognise our survival relies on us to get together, if we fall apart, it could be the end of the party.

Updated

Shares in London have closed higher tonight, on hopes that the UK’s political turmoil could ease soon, my colleague Graeme Wearden writes on his business live blog.

Guardian Live are holding a panel discussion on how long the Tory government can survive on Wednesday next week (26 October) at 7pm. My colleague John Crace and other Guardian journalists will be taking part. You can get tickets here.

Starmer says re-election of Johnson as Tory leader would make case for early election even stronger

The Labour leader Keir Starmer said his party has a manifesto “ready to go” if there is an early election. In an interview with the BBC’s Newscast podcast, he said:

There’s a manifesto that is going to be ready whenever an election is called. I’ve had a team working on that. I’ve had a team working on general election preparedness. We’ve moved our teams on to a general election footing. And I’ve got in place all the grids I need for a general election. So we’re very, very prepared, should there be a general election.

Starmer also said that, if the Tories were to replace Liz Truss with Boris Johnson, that would make the case for an early election even stronger. He explained:

Let’s remember that it was three months ago pretty much that he resigned in disgrace. He resigned because dozens of his frontbench [colleagues] were resigning themselves, saying he was unfit for office …

So if they’re going to go from this experiment, this chaos, this economic damage, [and] wind back three months to a man who was deemed to be unfit for office, I think that only adds insult to injury for the public [who will be] knocking on the door saying: ‘Hang on, why can’t we have a say on this?’

The public clamour for an early election is strong. Almost all the opposition parties are calling for one, as well as organistions like trade unions.

But however ridiculous the idea of the governing party changing leader twice without calling an election may seem, the Tories will not call one when they are so far behind in the polls. And the only mechanism available for forcing one is for the opposition to call a no confidence vote, which the government loses. That is not likely either.

Keir Starmer speaking at the TUC conference earlier today.
Keir Starmer speaking at the TUC conference earlier today. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

It is hard for any of us to resist saying “I told you so”, and Michel Barnier, the former EU Brexit negotiator, is no exception. He posted this message on Twitter this morning. It came before Liz Truss announced her resignation, but the point applies all the same.

Truss was not brought down by Brexit. But she had to resign because she won the leadership – and perhaps could only win the leadership – on a rightwing, populist policy platform that appalled the financial markets, and then the electorate, when she tried to implement it. The Conservative party has always had rightwingers as part of its membership, but since Brexit they have been the dominant faction.

Updated

Some of Penny Mordaunt’s supporters are urging her to stand. Mordaunt came third in the ballot of MPs in the summer, and polling suggested that, if she had been up against Rishi Sunak instead of Liz Truss in the final ballot of members, she would have won.

The Tory MP Bob Seely told Sky News that he hoped she would stand again. He said:

I think she has a great set of qualities. She has lots of ministerial experience. I think she comes across very well. And I think she resonates with people.

Right now when we are facing a couple of international crises, both in energy, but also in the Ukraine war, having somebody with stature, with government experience, who can resonate with people, I think is really important.

And this is from Damian Collins.

According to ITV’s Anushka Asthana, some Tories are touting Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, as a leadership candidate.

Others are sceptical. This is from the BBC’s Chris Mason.

Updated

The Conservative MP Justin Tomlinson told Sky News that, even though he had been a supporter of Boris Johnson, he did not think it was right to re-elect him as leader. Tomlinson said:

I just think it’s too soon. I was there supporting him to the very end but he did lose the confidence of the majority of our colleagues.

I thought that was wrong. But you have to respect that.

I don’t think a sufficient enough time has probably passed for the party to then unite behind him and for me this now is about us, frankly, being grown up, being pragmatic and putting the country first.

Joe Biden, the US president, has posted a message of thanks to Liz Truss. She never had time to establish any close relationships with foreign leaders, but her relationship with Biden was not warm. A statement from him last month attacking “trickle-down economics” was interpreted as criticism of her policies, even if it was not intended as such, and only a few days ago he called her mini-budget “a mistake”.

Updated

Wendy Morton, the government chief whip, arriving at No 10 this afternoon.
Wendy Morton, the government chief whip, arriving at No 10 this afternoon. Photograph: Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty Images

Theresa May urges Tory MPs to 'compromise' as they elect new leader

The former Conservative PM Theresa May has urged Tory MPs to “compromise” as they choose a new leader. She posted this on Twitter.

In the speech announcing her own resignation as PM, May stressed the importance of “compromise”. It is not clear what she means by stressing this point today. It is thought that she voted for Rishi Sunak, not Liz Truss, in the contest in the summer, and her compromise message is probably aimed at MPs on the party’s right.

Updated

Lib Dems urge Tories to ban Johnson from standing for leadership again

The Liberal Democrats say the Conservative party should block Boris Johnson from standing again. In a statement the Lib Dem deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said:

The fact that Conservative MPs are even considering putting Boris Johnson back in Number 10 shows how out of touch they really are. They think there’s one rule for them and another for everyone else.

Boris Johnson was forced to resign in disgrace after countless lies, scandals and failures. He shattered public trust in the government and plunged the UK into a political crisis. He must never be allowed near Downing Street again.

Updated

Here are some more Tory MPs backing Boris Johnson as the next Tory leader.

From Michael Fabricant

From Marco Longhi

From Andrea Jenkyns

A Boris Johnson comeback would be remarkable. It is not that unusual for a politician to lead a political party more than once. Alex Salmond had two stints as SNP leader, both lasting a decade, and Nigel Farage ended up leading Ukip three times. But for Johnson to return so quickly, having been forced out in disgrace, would be astonishing, even by the standards of modern Tory politics.

A poll this week suggested he might be the most popular candidate with members. But with the electorate as a whole he remains deeply unpopular, and so the party would be taking a considerable risk.

The Conservative MP Sir Robert Syms says it is “mad” to think that Boris Johnson could be leader again. He was responding to this tweet from Tom Harwood from GB News

Syms replied:

But the Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith told Sky News a few minutes ago that he would like to see Johnson return.

Clarke-Smith won Bassetlaw from Labour at the last election. He said Johnson was “very popular” in his “red wall” constituency. He accepted that Johnson might be less popular in “blue wall” seats, but he claimed that Johnson had the ability to run a “big tent” government with wide appeal. He said:

We need someone who can come in, we need somebody who can bring people together, somebody who actually has got that mandate. So a mandate from people in the last general election, a mandate from party members and somebody actually who can get this party going again, get us winning elections again.

The only person that I think that ticks all those boxes is Boris Johnson.

Updated

Here’s a clip of Sir Graham Brady speaking outside parliament after Liz Truss’s resignation, where he confirmed a leadership contest would be concluded by Friday 28 October.

Penny Mordaunt is taking soundings from colleagues on whether to stand as leader, Sky is reporting.

It is also thought that the justice secretary, Brandon Lewis, is considering running.

This is from Sky’s Beth Rigby, on how the leadership contest might be conducted.

Under the current rules, there are three candidates in the final ballot of MPs, and the top two go through to the ballot of members. But this means people do not know how MPs would vote if they just had to choose between the two top candidates.

In the last contest Rishi Sunak got 137 votes in the final round, Liz Truss got 113, and Penny Mordaunt got 105.

But if there had been an indicative ballot of the kind that Rigby says is being considered, and if, say, Mordaunt’s 105 votes had split 70 for Sunak and 35 for Truss, party members would have seen figures putting Sunak on 207 and Truss on 148. That would have given a better sense of which candidate had the strongest support amongst MPs, which is something some members would have taken into account before voting.

Updated

A former parliamentary private secretary to Boris Johnson, James Duddridge, has said it is time for his boss to “come back”.

Updated

Rishi Sunak ‘certain to stand’

Allies of Rishi Sunak say he is “certain to stand” for the leadership, the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope is reporting.

The paper writes that the 1922 Committee executive is expected to meet tonight between 5pm and 7pm to agree the rules for the leadership contest.

The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot also understands that Sunak is expected to stand.

Updated

Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin president, said in a statement that Liz Truss’s premiership had brought “45 days of chaos and dysfunction” and that the next Tory leader and PM should ensure the Northern Ireland protocol continues. She said:

This is a rudderless Tory government which has no mandate in Ireland.

Liz Truss’ legacy will be soaring mortgage payments, wrecking the economy, lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses and working in the interests of the super-rich …

Sinn Féin is ready to form an executive [in Northern Ireland] today that will put money in people’s pockets to deal with the cost-of-living crisis and start to fix the health service.

The new British prime minister needs to ensure that the Protocol continues to create jobs and investment by protecting our businesses from the damage of Brexit.

The DUP must now end its boycott of government and work with the rest of us to protect ordinary people from the damage caused by this inept and incompetent British government.

Some gallows humour from Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister. It appears that Liz Truss’s resignation will set another unwanted record, by making her the first prime minister in recent history not to call the UK’s devolved leaders at any point while in office.

Under a modern convention, one of the first acts of a new prime minister is to make a courtesy call to the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It emerged earlier this month that Truss had failed to uphold that tradition by omitting to call Sturgeon or Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, despite being in office for a month. Sturgeon called Truss’s failure to call “absurd”.

After Truss’s enforced resignation, the BBC Scotland political reporter Phillip Sims tweeted: “Is Liz Truss set to leave office without ever having a formal meeting or even phone call with Nicola Sturgeon?”

Sturgeon replied, with an eye-wink emoji: “If she doesn’t mind, I’ll now just wait for whoever will become the 5th PM (so far) during my time as FM.”

Truss and Sturgeon had a famously frosty relationship, largely due to Truss describing the first minister, now the UK’s longest-serving government and party leader, as an “attention-seeker” who was best ignored, during the last Tory leadership contest.

Updated

A bookmaker posing for a picture at Westminster today with a blackboard showing the odds for the next Tory leader
A bookmaker posing for a picture at Westminster today with a blackboard showing the odds for the next Tory leader Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP

Liz Truss has posted an update to her Twitter account following her resignation as prime minister.

Russia’s foreign ministry has welcomed the departure of Liz Truss as British prime minister, describing her as a “disgrace” of a leader who will be remembered for her “catastrophic illiteracy”.

“Britain has never known such a disgrace of a prime minister,” the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a social media post.

Truss has been the target of withering comments from Moscow since, in her capacity as foreign secretary, she visited in February as part of a fruitless drive by western politicians to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The claim of illiteracy appears to refer to a meeting she held then with Russia’s veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in which she appeared to confuse two regions of Russia with Ukraine, triggering widespread mockery in Russian media.

Zakharova also mocked Truss’s high-profile photo shoot in Estonia last year, where she donned a flak jacket and helmet to ride in a tank during a visit to British troops stationed in the Baltic country.

Liz Truss in Estonia in November last year.
Liz Truss in Estonia in November last year. Photograph: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street

Updated

A Tory MP has told the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot that he will defect to the Labour party immediately if Boris Johnson becomes the next Tory leader.

Updated

Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Sparrow, joining Léonie Chao-Fong on the blog.

Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, announced a few minutes ago that the party wants to have a new leader in place by the end of next week. (See 2.20pm.) But he did not say how this would happen.

In recent weeks there has been an assumption that MPs might bypass the Tory membership, who are meant to get the final say over the leader. But when Brady was asked if members would be included, he said “that is the expectation”. He went on:

The reason I’ve spoken to the party chairman and discussed the parameters of a process is to look at how we can make the whole thing happen, including the party being consulted, by the end of next week.

What does that mean in practice? Brady did not say, but three options seem likely.

1) MPs choose a leader, and members are given the chance to approve them in a snap ballot. Brady may have been hinting at this when he talked about the party “being consulted”. This could be done quickly. Or, at least, the MPs could choose a new leader, and that new leader could start forming a cabinet while waiting to be confirmed in post by a members’ ballot. A confirmatory ballot of this kind might seem pointless, but Charles Moore, the former Telegraph editor and an influential figure in Tory politics, argued in a column this week that it would be worthwhile. He said in a column:

If [MPs choose the leader], they should probably do something else which sounds pointless, and almost like life in a communist country, but isn’t. Both in the parliamentary party and the rank-and-file, they should hold a vote for the single, chosen person. Then MPs would have to give their clear personal endorsement.

Some object to this idea, asking: “But what if it turns out that lots of people won’t vote for the chosen X?” I’m afraid the answer is: “Well, if that is so, you know you have a party that cannot be led. In which case, goodbye.”

2) Members choose from a shortlist chosen by MPs, but very quickly. Perhaps this is possible with online voting. But it is still hard to see how this could be done by the end of next week, and MPs do fear this system could throw up another leader who does not command the support of a majority of MPs.

3) MPs choose the leader, with members not getting any say at all. Under Tory party rules, members are meant to elect the leader from a shortlist of two. But if MPs could strong-arm all candidates to agree to accept the verdict of MPs, so that the runner-up waives their right to take it to the membership, the members could be excluded. Brady has indicated the party does not want this. At one point Tories were hoping that a single, “unity” candidate might emerge. But it is already clear this afternoon (see 2.23pm and 2.24pm) that that will not happen.

Sir Graham Brady talking to journalists.
Sir Graham Brady talking to journalists. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

Updated

Boris Johnson ‘to stand for leader'

Boris Johnson is expected to stand in the Tory leadership contest, the Times is reporting.

The former prime minister is reportedly taking soundings but is said to believe it is a matter of national interest, Steven Swinford writes.

Updated

The first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has also called for a general election.

He said:

This has been a complete and utter failure of government, with everyone in this country now having to pay the price.

The complete lack of leadership is preventing decisions and actions from being taken to deal with the many challenges we are facing and help people over what is going to be a very difficult winter.

Unfortunately, the deep and intractable divisions within the government means that any successor put forward will face the same set of challenges.

A general election is now the only way to end this paralysis.

The Green party has joined calls by Labour, the Lib Dems and the Scottish National party for a general election.

In a statement, the Green party co–leader Carla Denyer said:

The Tory chaos has spiralled beyond any pretence that the country has a viable government.

It is reckless for the Tories to claim that they can replace Liz Truss with any leader capable of commanding authority, nationally or internationally.

The Tories want to impose austerity 2.0 with no electoral mandate. That means more cuts to vital public services and more suffering for people across the country.

The government simply cannot govern - it is unfit for office.

We need a general election now so people can vote for the policies they want to see that will turn this mess around.

The Green party will always stand for a fairer, greener country. We believe the way out of this crisis is to do the opposite of what the government has done – to reduce inequality rather than making it worse, through progressive taxation, including a wealth tax, and windfall taxes on the companies making super profits during this cost of living crisis.

We would use the money to invest in a nationwide insulation programme to make sure people can afford to keep their homes warm, reduce inequality by ensuring that those with the deepest pockets help fund proper public services for all, and fund the beginnings of a just transition to a sustainable economy that protects the people and planet.

It is time for the people to be given their chance to decide on the country’s future.

Updated

The British Chambers of Commerce has called for a quick decision on the new prime minister.

It says Liz Truss’s resignation “means the UK now faces even greater uncertainty, just as it stands on the cusp of a recession”. It said:

The challenges that lay ahead of us are building by the day, with energy prices, inflation and labour shortages impacting businesses up and down the country.

This is unsustainable. Government must work with business to address three main issues, to show it recognises the challenges firms face.

Those issues were: the energy support package, including from April onwards; the shortage of skilled people in the labour market; and the need to boost exports.

Updated

Sir Graham Brady was vague about whether one or two candidates would be likely to run for the Conservative party leadership. He said:

The party rules say there will be two candidates unless there is only one candidate.

Asked what happens if one candidate drops out, Brady said:

If there is only one candidate, there is only one candidate.

Updated

Speaking just now, the 1922 Committee chair, Sir Graham Brady, said he expected Tory members to be involved in choosing a new party leader.

Asked if the party faithful would be included in the process, he told reporters:

Well, that is the expectation. So the reason I’ve spoken to the party chairman and I discussed the parameters of a process is to look at how we can make the whole thing happen, including the party being consulted, by Friday next week.

He added:

I think we’re deeply conscious of the imperative in the national interest of resolving this clearly and quickly.

The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar asks:

Updated

Kemi Badenoch expected to run as Conservative party leader

Kemi Badenoch is also likely to put herself forward.

An ally said:

It should not be a coronation; the party needs to think about generational change and making sure the next person comes without baggage.

Updated

Suella Braverman expected to run for leader

Suella Braverman is widely expected to stand to be Tory leader, although Sir John Hayes, the former minister who is a confidante and adviser to the former home secretary, declined to say if she plans to stand.

“Suella has clearly got a big future in the Conservative party and is widely recognised as a standard bearer for authentic traditional Toryism,” he said.

New leader in place by 28 October, says Graham Brady

Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, says it will be possible to conduct a leadership ballot by 28 October.

He says:

I have spoken to the party chairman, Jake Berry, and he has confirmed that it will be possible to conduct a ballot and conclude a leadership election by Friday the 28 October.

So we should have a new leader in place before the fiscal statement which will take place on the 31st.

He said he would be able to give more details later this afternoon.

Updated

The 1922 Committee chair, Sir Graham Brady, is about to make a statement outside parliament.

Updated

Pound higher as 'sorry reign' of Truss ends

The pound is still up half a cent at $1.126 as investors digest the departure of Liz Truss.

As Neil Wilson of Market.com points out, although the PM’s “sorry reign” is over, there is still huge uncertainty about whether the Tory party can survive in power.

So that uncertainty means there’s not a firmer move in the markets (the FTSE 100 has now dropped back into the red for the day.

Wilson writes:

The economic policies were already dead in the water so the market doesn’t have a huge amount of genuine new information to move on despite the seismic events of the last 24 hours.

Truss’s decision to stand down may allow for a new leader to see out the parliamentary term, Wilson suggests. It could be a Rishi Sunak/Jeremy Hunt ticket - meaning fiscal restraint.

Wilson also adds that the markets “probably likes orthodox one-nation Tory economics” rather than anything else.

For more business news, please follow our live blog:

Updated

Tom Tugendhat will not be running for the Conservative party leadership, Guido Fawkes reports.

Michael Gove ruled out for Tory leadership

Michael Gove has been ruled out for the Tory leadership, the Guardian understands.

Updated

Here’s the video of Liz Truss’s statement.

It will be hugely difficult for Conservative MPs to coalesce around a new leader to replace Liz Truss, the Guardian’s Peter Walker writes.

A more moderate choice will have the right wing of the party explode, and another rightwing leader would risk renewed market chaos.

Updated

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has also called for a general election.

Coup, assassination, abdication, suicide and illness – all have contributed to history’s shortest serving leaderships though none, in the literal sense at least, can be said to apply to Liz Truss.

But at just 45 days, she faces the ignominy of being the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister by some degree.

As she becomes an indelible footnote in British history, it will be little comfort to Truss that, compared with some, she has enjoyed positive political longevity.

Read the full story here:

Updated

Liz Truss's resignation speech in full

I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability.

Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their bills.

Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine threatens the security of our whole continent.

And our country had been held back for too long by low economic growth.

I was elected by the Conservative Party with a mandate to change this.

We delivered on energy bills and on cutting national insurance.

And we set out a vision for a low tax, high growth economy – that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.

I recognise though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.

I have therefore spoken to His Majesty The King to notify him that I am resigning as Leader of the Conservative Party.

This morning I met the Chair of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady.

We have agreed there will be a leadership election to be completed in the next week.

This will ensure we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.

I will remain as Prime Minister until a successor has been chosen.

Thank you .

Labour and Lib Dems call for immediate general election

The leader of the Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer, has called for an immediate general election.

In a statement following Liz Truss’s resignation, Starmer said:

The Conservative party has shown it no longer has a mandate to govern.

After 12 years of Tory failure, the British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos. In the last few years, the Tories have set record-high taxation, trashed our institutions and created a cost-of-living crisis. Now, they have crashed the economy so badly that people are facing £500 a month extra on their mortgages. The damage they have done will take years to fix.

Each one of these crises was made in Downing Street but paid for by the British public. Each one has left our country weaker and worse off.

The Tories cannot respond to their latest shambles by yet again simply clicking their fingers and shuffling the people at the top without the consent of the British people. They do not have a mandate to put the country through yet another experiment; Britain is not their personal fiefdom to run how they wish.

The British public deserve a proper say on the country’s future. They must have the chance to compare the Tories’ chaos with Labour’s plans to sort out their mess, grow the economy for working people and rebuild the country for a fairer, greener future. We must have a chance at a fresh start. We need a general election - now.

Lib Dem leader, Sir Ed Davey, has also called for a general election.

https://twitter.com/EdwardJDavey/status/1583074619137089536

Updated

Jeremy Hunt 'not running to be PM'

Jeremy Hunt will not stand for the leadership contest, according to reports.

The BBC reports that Hunt has confirmed he will not stand to be the next Conservative leader and UK prime minister.

Updated

Leadership election 'to be completed within the next week'

Truss said she has spoken with the King to notify him that she is resigning as the leader of the Conservative party.

Earlier she met with the chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, where they “agreed that there will be a leadership election to be completed within the next week”. She said:

This will ensure that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.

Truss said she would remain as prime minister until a successor is chosen.

Updated

Liz Truss began her statement by saying that she came into office “at a time of great economic and international instability”.

Britain has been “held back for too long by low economic growth”, she said. She says she was elected by her party with a mandate to change this.

Her government “delivered on energy bills” and cut national insurance, she said, as well as “setting out a vision for a low tax high growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit”.

She went on:

I recognise though given the situation I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party.

Liz Truss has announced she is to step down as prime minister – here is our breaking story

Updated

Liz Truss resigns as prime minister

Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister after just 45 days in office.

The announcement, made by Truss outside Downing Street, follows the near-complete evaporation of her political authority which has seen her crash the markets, lose two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs.

Truss will be the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history.

Updated

Liz Truss to resign as prime minister

Liz Truss is expected to resign as prime minister, the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar has been told.

Updated

Liz Truss to make statement about her future

The prime minister Liz Truss is about to make a statement following talks in Downing Street with the chair of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady the deputy prime minister Thérèse Coffey and Conservative party chairman Jake Berry.

Truss is expected to issue a statement imminently, according to Downing Street sources, prompting intense speculation that she is on the brink of resigning as prime minister after just 45 days, following the near-complete evaporation of her political authority, a process begun by last month’s disastrous mini-budget.

A lectern is being set up outside 10 Downing Street in preparation for Truss’s speech.

It is unclear whether she will step down immediately or set out a timetable for departure, with the Conservative party so far unable to coalesce around a successor, although Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt and Ben Wallace have all been mentioned as possible successors.

Read the full story here:

Updated

Downing Street to make statement at 1.30pm

Liz Truss is expected to make a statement in Downing Street at 1:30pm, it has been announced.

Updated

And another Tory MP – now Ruth Edwards, MP for Rushcliffe – has publicly called on Liz Truss to resign.

Writing for ConservativeHome, she said Tory colleagues were “in tears” in the run-up to last night’s fracking vote after being forced to choose between voting to lose the whip or voting against a manifesto commitment.

She says:

The trust between the Parliamentary Party and the Prime Minister no longer exists. You can only pull a stunt like that once. And you can’t work as a team if the foot soldiers are treated with contempt by the general.

She says she made her views known to the 1922 Committee chair, Sir Graham Brady, earlier this week, adding:

The prime minister has shown breath-taking economic and political incompetence during her short tenure in office. It is not responsible for the party to allow her to remain in power. Not when her actions can have such detrimental consequences for our constituents.

Meanwhile, yet another Tory MP has publicly called for Liz Truss to go.

MP for Hartlepool Jill Mortimer said the “deteriorating situation” yesterday has left her with no choice but to submit a letter of no confidence.

She shared an image of her letter to 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady, writing:

Yesterday, I tried to get called in PMQs to ask Liz Truss for an assurance of support for our town and our promises.

Sadly I was not called and the deteriorating situation throughout the day left me with no choice but to submit a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister to Sir Graham Brady.

Updated

A senior Tory party source has told Beth Rigby from Sky News that they understand any change of rules to impose a candidate or change thresholds for nominations would need to go to the party board.

The source claims Liz Truss is now “PINO” (PM in name only) until this rule change is made.

The chair of the Conservative party, Jake Berry, has arrived at Downing Street.

Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, has now been inside No 10 for about an hour.

Veteran Tory MP and former cabinet minister David Davis has warned the Conservative party is facing an “existential threat”.

Davis said it was “inevitable” there would be enough letters of no confidence submitted and urged the party’s 1922 Committee to come up with a fast process to elect a new leader. He told ITV News:

I feel very sorry for Liz Truss right now but what is happening could be existential for the Conservative party.

He suggested increasing the number of nominations needed from MPs from 20 to 30 or 40 or 50, so only a handful of candidates can get through. “Then we could have a vote of MPs within days,” he said.

Then we could go to the members with online hustings and have the process done in a week. That wouldn’t reduce confidence it would build it as we would be moving to stability.

Downing Street said there were no plans for Liz Truss to hold a press conference or to make any more changes to her cabinet today.

The PM’s official spokesperson did not deny a report that she authorised briefings against Sajid Javid and Michael Gove, but said Truss has “deep respect” for them.

Updated

Thérèse Coffey arrives at Downing Street

The deputy prime minister, Thérèse Coffey, has arrived at Downing Street.

Coffey entered via the back entrance amid talks inside No 10 between Liz Truss and the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.

Updated

Who are the Tory MPs calling for Truss to quit?

As it stands, here are the MPs who have said publicly that the Conservative party needs a change of leader:

Crispin Blunt

“The game is up,” Crispin Blunt told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show. “I would be very, very surprised if there are people dying in a ditch to keep Liz Truss as our prime minister.” On his website, Blunt has called for Jeremy Hunt to take over as prime minister.

Andrew Bridgen

Bridgen, who has sent letters of no confidence for all of the previous prime ministers since 2010, told the Telegraph: “We cannot carry on like this. Our country, its people and our party deserve better.”

Jamie Wallis

The MP for Bridgend tweeted: “In recent weeks, I have watched as the government has undermined Britain’s economic credibility and fractured our party irreparably. Enough is enough. I have written to the prime minister to ask her to stand down as she no longer holds the confidence of this country.”

Angela Richardson

A former PPS, Richardson told Times Radio Truss was to blame for the economic turmoil. “We saw those unfunded tax cuts. Had that not happened, the markets would not have responded in the way that they did … that’s 100% down to the prime minister, I’m afraid. And so I just don’t think that it’s tenable that she can stay in her position any longer.”

Charles Walker

The veteran Tory MP who previously held a senior role in the 1922 Committee went viral with a tirade against his colleagues who had voted for Truss. “I’m livid and, you know, I really shouldn’t say this but I hope all those people that put Liz Truss in No 10 – I hope it was worth it,” he told the BBC. “I hope it was worth it for the ministerial red box. I hope it was worth it to sit around the cabinet table, because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary.”

William Wragg

Wragg revealed he had submitted a letter of no confidence as part of an explanation as to why he did not want to lose the whip as an MP by voting against the government. “If I vote as I would wish, then I would lose the whip …. And indeed, because of that, my letter lodged with [Sir Graham Brady] would fall, and I wish to maintain that letter with my honourable friend.”

Gary Streeter

The MP for South West Devon said a change was needed but warned there must be fresh party unity. He tweeted: “Sadly, it seems we must change leader BUT even if the angel Gabriel now takes over, the parliamentary party has to urgently rediscover discipline, mutual respect and teamwork if we are to (i) govern the UK well and (ii) avoid slaughter at the next election.”

Sheryll Murray

Murray backed Truss for the leadership but said she agreed it had been a failure. “I had high hopes for Liz Truss but after what happened last night her position has become untenable and I have submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady,” she said.

Steve Double

The MP has raised a number of objections over the past few weeks about Truss’ mini-budget and plans for potential cuts to benefits or pensions. He told his local BBC station: “I’m afraid the conclusion from the events of yesterday evening is that clearly she has lost control of the government and I think she does need to do the right thing and step aside. The game is up. She’s been given the opportunity and things are getting worse not better.”

Henry Smith

The Crawley MP Tory told Times Radio. “We need new leadership … I’m afraid I’m very sorry to say that has been distinctly lacking from Downing Street in the last several weeks.”

Matthew Offord

Offord told the Evening Standard the cabinet should find a way for Truss to step aside: “I can’t see the situation being sustainable. She does need to sit down and discuss it with her cabinet and with others to manage some kind of dignified exit.”

Miriam Cates

Cates backed Braverman for the leadership in the 2022 leadership election but then declined to support either candidate. She told Times Radio: “It seems untenable … and yes, I do think it’s time for the prime minister to go.”

• This post has been updated. The original entry said Jamie Wallis was MP for Newport. He is MP for Bridgend.

Updated

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said that a Russian fighter jet recently “released a missile” in the vicinity of a British aircraft over the Black Sea.

The incident occurred in “international airspace over the Black Sea” last month, Wallace told the Commons.

He said:

I would also like to share with the house details of a recent incident which occurred in international airspace over the Black Sea.

On September 29 an unarmed RAF RC-135 Rivet Joint, a civilian-style aircraft on routine patrol over the Black Sea was interacted with by two Russian armed Su-27 fighter aircraft. It is not unusual for aircraft to be shadowed and this day was no different.

During that interaction however, it transpired that one of the Su-27 aircraft released a missile in the vicinity of the RAF Rivet Joint beyond visual range.

The total time of the interaction between the Russian aircraft and the Rivet Joint was approximately 90 minutes. The patrol completed and the aircraft returned to base.

Updated

Here’s a photograph of the chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, entering No 10 to meet with Liz Truss.

The prime minister was not scheduled to have a meeting with Brady – but Downing Street has confirmed he was invited by Truss for talks.

Downing Street has refused to say that Liz Truss will stick to the Conservative party’s manifesto pledge to reduce net migration overall.

Nadine Batchelor-Hunt from Yahoo News writes that the PM’s spokesperson did not appear to be aware that a meeting would take place between Truss and Sir Graham Brady.

No 10 says Liz Truss will continue beyond 31 October

Downing Street has denied that there is any change to Liz Truss’s plan to stay in No 10 beyond the fiscal plan on 31 October.

A spokesperson for the prime minister told reporters:

No plans for any change. The prime minister will continue beyond the 31st.

They added that Truss “acknowledges yesterday was a difficult day”. They said:

She recognises the public wanted to see the government focusing less on politics and more on delivering their priorities. That is also what the prime minister wants.

You saw her take action yesterday and make a number of difficult decisions. She ensured the public can take confidence in the importance of the ministerial code, she provided reassurance to pensioners worried about the rising cost of living. And she took further steps on safeguarding energy security.

She’s also working with the chancellor on delivering economic stability and growth.

Updated

The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar writes that sources in No 10 say the meeting between Liz Truss and Graham Brady was made at the request of the PM.

Downing Street confirms Liz Truss is meeting Graham Brady

Downing Street has confirmed that Liz Truss is currently meeting with the chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.

Updated

1922 Committee chair Graham Brady in No 10 to meet Liz Truss

Sir Graham Brady, chair of the powerful backbench 1922 Committee, has gone into No 10 to meet Liz Truss.

Updated

The One Nation group of Tory MPs have been meeting this morning to try to coalesce around a single successor to replace Liz Truss, Paul Brand from ITV News reports.

He writes that Jeremy Hunt was rejected vociferously by one MP in the meeting. Other names being discussed include Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, and do not include Boris Johnson or Suella Braverman, he adds.

In the course of 12 hours on Wednesday, multiple crises hit Liz Truss’s government which in normal times would have each individually caused a long-running scandal. Now they come so thick and fast, something that happened at 12pm is barely remembered by 7pm. Yet the prime minister clings on.

Just after noon, at PMQs the prime minister directly contradicted her new chancellor and said the “triple lock” on the state pension was safe. News broke that one of her most trusted and senior aides was suspended after a toxic briefing war in the Sunday papers.

Then without drawing breath, Truss sacked her home secretary, Suella Braverman, for a baffling row about an email address amid deadlock over their views on migration policy. Braverman sent back an excoriating letter about the direction of Truss’s government. Truss installed one of her most prominent critics, Grant Shapps, in Braverman’s place.

Tory MPs were also threatened with losing the whip if they voted with Labour on an anti-fracking motion. Then a minister wrongly said it was no longer a confidence vote. Many abstained. The chief whip resigned. Then by 1.33am the media were told it was a confidence vote after all. The chief whip had un-resigned. MPs who abstained have no idea – even by Thursday morning - whether they are still Conservative MPs.

Chaos like that was never seen even in the darkest days of the Brexit wars or Partygate. Truss is less than 50 days into her premiership.

So how is the prime minister still in post? Most MPs will tell you the situation is unsustainable, but it remains sustainable as long as they remain unsure about how to act.

Read the full story here:

Nadine Dorries: MPs 'must demand return of Boris Johnson'

The Conservative former culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has called for Boris Johnson to replace Liz Truss as prime minister if she is ousted from office.

There can be “no coronation of previously failed candidates” if Truss is no longer PM, Dorries wrote on Twitter.

She added:

MPs must demand return of Boris Johnson - if not it has to be leadership election or a GE.

Updated

Tory MP Crispin Blunt has called for Jeremy Hunt to take over as the next prime minister, after describing Liz Truss’s position as “wholly untenable”.

Hunt has “in a few short days impressively exercised his known personal qualities and has made the first critical contribution to restoring the primacy of serving the national interest”, Blunt wrote in a statement on his website.

He said:

Today’s position remains wholly untenable and I would be astonished if the prime minister herself did not recognise that. If she doesn’t those closest to her must tell her.

This pantomime around the leadership must stop now.

He added that “in the circumstances, for others to advance their own claims will only be a damaging self-indulgence”. He continued:

My parliamentary colleagues must put personal ambition and interest to one side and consider the wider interest over the next two years. The disingenuous explanation for Suella Braverman’s resignation and last night’s parliamentary team management must mark the low point in Conservative team performance, and we must set out to repair it now.

Hendon Tory MP Matthew Offord has also called on Liz Truss to go.

He told the Evening Standard:

I can’t see the situation being sustainable. She does need to sit down and discuss it with her cabinet and with others to manage some kind of dignified exit.

Updated

The Tory MP for St Austell and Newquay, Steve Double, has joined calls for Liz Truss to go.

In a statement, he said:

The prime minister has lost control of the government and the confidence of Conservative MPs. For the good of the country, she needs to resign.

The Conservative party should unite behind a candidate such as Rishi Sunak to replace Truss, he added. He said:

Rishi Sunak’s predictions about the disastrous consequences of Liz Truss’s policies have been proven right. We now need someone like him to step up to show that they can get a grip on the situation and lead from the front.

Updated

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has been asking an urgent question in the House of Commons following Suella Braverman’s resignation yesterday.

The new home secretary, Grant Shapps, is not in the chamber. Labour’s question was instead taken by Brendan Clarke-Smith, parliamentary secretary for the Cabinet Office.

Clarke-Smith said Braverman had resigned after a “breach of cabinet confidentiality and the rules related to the security of cabinet business”.

He added:

The PM has made clear the importance of upholding high standards in public life and her expectation that ministers should uphold these standards.

Ministers only remain in office so long as they retain the confidence of the prime minister. She is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards.

Braverman has “explained her decision to resign and to be clear the information that was circulated was subject to cabinet confidentiality and under live discussion within the government”, he said.

Cooper described the government as being in “total chaos” and that MPs were “fighting like rats in a sack” at last night’s Commons vote.

She said:

We’ve got the third home secretary in seven weeks. The cabinet was only appointed six weeks ago. The home secretary has been sacked, the chancellor sacked, the chief whip sacked and then unsacked... This is a disgrace.

Updated

Two more Tory MPs call for Liz Truss to go

Crawley MP Henry Smith told Times Radio that “we need new leadership”, adding:

In a time of uncertainty, we need solid leadership and I’m afraid I’m very sorry to say that has been distinctly lacking from Downing Street in the last several weeks.

Truss “should do the honourable thing and say her premiership has made the wrong calls not just once or twice, but consistently since coming into office”, he added.

He also said:

I think events will probably gain momentum in the coming hours and days. I think members should be involved as much as possible in choosing the leader.

Miriam Cates, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, also called for Truss to stand down while speaking on Times Radio. She said:

It seems untenable ... and yes, I do think it’s time for the prime minister to go.

She added:

The polls are really poor. If there was an election today, clearly, we would be decimated...Our priority right now has to be to govern in the national interest, not thinking about an election, whether that’s now or in two years, but to take control of this very, very difficult economic and social situation.

Updated

Keir Starmer renews call for immediate general election

Keir Starmer has renewed his call for an immediate general election, accusing Liz Truss’s government of being too mired in “pathetic squabbles,” to govern the UK.

The Labour leader said the Conservatives had hit “a new chaotic low,” after the departure of the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and Wednesday night’s bungled vote in the House of Commons.

“All the failures of the past 12 years have now come to the boil,” he said, speaking to union delegates at the TUC congress in Brighton.

The victims of crime who can’t get justice. People dying because ambulances can’t get there in time. Millions going without food or heating. And none of it can drum into the Tories the idea that our country must come first. They lack the basic patriotic duty to keep the British people out of their own pathetic squabbles.

Read the full story here:

Updated

A spokesperson for Suella Braverman says the former home secretary is not expected to make a resignation statement in the Commons today.

Updated

Tory MP for Stroud, Siobhan Baillie, says she doesn’t know if she is still a Conservative MP after abstaining on last night’s fracking vote.

Updated

The international trade secretary Kemi Badenoch says she has no plans to resign from her post.

Asked if she will step down, she added:

It’s quite clear there is quite a lot of turmoil in the party, but what we all need to do is keep calm heads and work to resolve it. I’m confident that we can do that.

She refused to answer when asked if Liz Truss will resign today.

The veteran Tory MP Charles Walker, who appeared visibly furious over last night’s chaos in the Commons, said he expects Liz Truss to resign “very soon”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight late last night, he said:

I am really pleased that the home secretary has resigned, because I didn’t think she was up to the job. So let’s not beat around the bush here. And I expect the prime minister to resign very soon because she’s not up to her job either.

Walker said he would “shed no tears” for either Truss or Braverman.

Asked about how soon she should quit, he said he hoped by Thursday, adding:

She needs to go. She shouldn’t have been made prime minister. It’s chaos and most of my colleagues have had enough. There may be 30 out there that still feel that somehow this shambles is recoverable. But about 330 of us have now given up all hope that the current PM can navigate her way out of this.

We need to take ownership of this as a political party... the grown-ups in our party, and a few do exist, need to meet in a papal conclave over the next 24 hours and decide on a coronation. I don’t want any nonsense of votes I want the best person we’ve got to become prime minister.

Asked what would happen if Truss refuses to quit, he replied:

She will be removed then. I am in no doubt that she will be removed... We will find a mechanism.

Updated

Dozens of Conservative MPs are facing potential disciplinary action or losing the party whip after Downing Street announced that a chaotic vote on fracking was being treated as a confidence issue.

It was widely reported that Liz Truss’s chief whip, Wendy Morton, and the deputy chief whip, Craig Whittaker, had stepped down after disorderly scenes, with MPs alleging ministers physically pulled some wavering Tories into the voting lobbies.

Wendy Morton, the chief whip who was described by a Tory backbencher as having been engaged in a ‘full-blown shouting match’ with her deputy.
Wendy Morton, the chief whip who was described by a Tory backbencher as having been engaged in a ‘full-blown shouting match’ with her deputy. Photograph: Steve Wood/REX/Shutterstock

The vote, on a Labour motion that would have set in place a future decision on potentially banning fracking in England, had been billed in advance as a confidence motion, meaning Tories who did not back it could be stripped of the party whip and forced to sit as independent MPs.

After a series of MPs said they would rebel nonetheless, including Chris Skidmore, the former minister who heads up Truss’s review into net zero policies, the climate minister, Graham Stuart, told the Commons: “Quite clearly this is not a confidence vote.”

But in yet another apparent policy reverse in recent days, a No 10 statement on Thursday morning said Stuart had been incorrectly informed about this, and confirmed that the whips remained in place.

In total, 40 Tory MPs did not vote with the government, although none voted with Labour, meaning the government defeated the Labour motion by 326 votes to 230. Some of these would have had permission to be away, and some seemingly did not have their votes properly recorded. But it leaves open the prospect of a large number of MPs being reprimanded or losing the whip.

Read the full story by my colleagues, Peter Walker and Jamie Grierson:

Supporters of Boris Johnson are putting pressure on Tory MPs to tell Sir Graham Brady they want to bring him back, the Guardian’s Aubrey Allegretti writes.

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has announced he has asked the serjeant at arms and other parliamentary officials to investigate allegations of “manhandling” in the Commons last night.

In a statement to MPs, he said:

I wish to say something about the reports of behaviour in the division lobbies last night. I have asked the serjeant at arms and other senior officials to investigate the incident and report back to me. I will then update the house.

I remind members that the behaviour code applies to them as well as to other members of our parliamentary community, and this gives me another opportunity to talk about the kind of house I want to see and I believe that the vast majority of MPs also want to see. I want this to be a house in which we, while we might have very strong political disagreements, treat each other courteously and with respect, and we should show the same courtesy and respect to those who work with and for us.

To that end I will be meeting with senior party representatives to seek an agreed position that behaviour like that described last night is not acceptable in all circumstances.

Updated

The Labour MP Chris Bryant has said “the lettuce” or “the tofu” might as well lead the government, referencing a livestream from the Daily Star that asks viewers whether Liz Truss’s premiership will last longer than a head of lettuce, and Suella Braverman’s recent tofu remark.

Bryant on Wednesday raised a point of order, accusing senior Tories of “bullying” backbenchers to vote with the government. He called for an investigation and provided a photograph of the incident to the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, who is said to be taking it “very seriously”.

Another Tory MP calls for Truss to go

The Conservative MP for South East Cornwall, Sheryll Murray, says she has submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady.

Labour granted urgent question on Suella Braverman's departure

Labour has been granted an urgent question in the House of Commons on Suella Braverman’s departure from the government.

The question from the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, will be take place at around 10.30am.

Updated

A member of the 1922 Committee has told ITV News’s Paul Brand that the “odds are against” Liz Truss surviving the day as prime minister.

Another Tory MP has told him that Truss will last until 31 October because there is no agreement on how to remove her from office.

Updated

Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the commons defence select committee, has called for Liz Truss to “honestly address the question of her leadership” with cabinet and the 1922 committee after Jeremy Hunt’s fiscal statement on 31 October.

He told viewers of Sky News that if Conservatives “don’t park the blue-on-blue action” they could be out of government for a generation. Speaking in what Kay Burley described as “a very angry tone I’m picking up this morning”, he said:

We’re here to serve the British people who are watching this day by day and they want leadership. In my view this crisis requires a two phase plan if we want to prevent a collapse of government. Stage one is the collective discipline to allow the chancellor to complete his economic update that both the markets and indeed the nation are waiting for. So we get some stability and predictability about energy bills, about pensions, about benefits, about mortgage interest rates. Sorting the economy out must be our priority.

During this time, I say to colleagues, that the steady very public drip feed against the prime minister is not in the national interest. By all means submit your letter to Graham Brady if you are inclined, but let Jeremy Hunt complete his task. Because if we implode before then, the instability would lead to a run on the pound, interest rates climbing further, and it would put us into opposition for a generation.

And the second phase would be for the prime minister to show and commit now to honestly addressing this question of her leadership with the 1922 Committee and the cabinet. But after that fiscal statement next week.

This would help move the entire debate behind closed doors, rather than the reputationally damaging public soap opera that this is now becoming, and in worst case, triggering an early general election. Let’s grip the situation. Let’s start to control the agenda.

The chief whip, Wendy Morton, has been spotted entering Downing Street this morning following rumours that she had resigned from her role last night.

ITV News’ Robert Peston writes that there is a collective will among cabinet ministers that Liz Truss should stay in office till 31 October.

According to one minister, the PM may not be able to rely on her cabinet’s support to stay on till even then.

Any stay of execution gives Truss hope that she might be able to remain PM past Halloween, he writes. These 10 days are therefore a “theoretical lifeline”.

Here is the agenda for the day:

9.30am: The House of Commons will begin with digital, culture, media and sport questions.

10am: The public accounts committee will quiz senior HMRC officials on their annual accounts.

10.10am: Attorney general questions in the Commons. Urgent questions/statements will follow, including business questions.

10.45am: The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) will deliver its conclusions after a five-year national inquiry into decades of child sex abuse in Britain.

11am. The House of Lords will begin with questions on energy bills support for community spaces, unemployment figures and the responsibilities of the equalities minister.

11.45am. Debates in the Lords on the current level of violent crime and on the impact of the cost of living on public wellbeing.

10.10am: The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, will speak at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) annual congress in Brighton. He is expected to accuse Liz Truss of “insulting” British workers while pledging a Labour government will repeal any new Conservative legislation restricting the right to strike.

2pm: The UK Health Security Agency is expected to publish its weekly Covid-19 surveillance report.

Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee chairman, is due to meet other 1922 officers today to discuss next steps.

Updated

The Conservative peer Ed Vaizey has echoed calls for Liz Truss to stand down and for somebody to be appointed as prime minister by Tory MPs.

It was clear from Suella Braverman’s resignation letter that Truss regards herself as a credible candidate to be prime minister, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He said:

In terms of kind of shocking self-belief there will be at least five or six people out there who genuinely believe they could be the next prime minister. So if the Tory party cannot have a degree of self-knowledge and realise that the only way forward is to appoint someone they’re pretty much sunk.

Updated

The transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has insisted that she is still part of a functioning government.

Asked if Liz Truss is the best person the Conservatives can offer as prime minister, she told BBC Breakfast:

Yes, she was selected through a long and tortuous process over the summer.. by our members and that’s how the Conservative party system works to choose a leader and we stand firmly alongside her.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she admitted yesterday was a “turbulent” one with the resignation of Suella Braverman, but said Grant Shapps will now “pick up the reins” in the Home Office.

Asked to explain what happened at last night’s chaotic fracking vote, Trevelyan said the fracking vote “remained a three-line whip all the way through”.

The cabinet minister also told LBC that people should have confidence in the Conservative party because they are delivering an “important package of work” to provide “stability”.

She said:

Jeremy Hunt is the new chancellor, bringing in... a full package at the end of the month, so we want to give him the space to do that.

Updated

Tory MP calls for Liz Truss to go

The Conservative MP Gary Streeter has become the latest Tory to call for Liz Truss to go.

Streeter becomes the seventh Tory MP to publicly call for a change in leader.

Updated

The business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has denied Tory MPs were bullied and manhandled at last night’s fracking vote.

Rees-Mogg said “to characterise it as bullying is mistaken” and that a “perfectly normal discussion” had taken place with some MPs “who weren’t sure whether it was a confidence vote or not”, the Times reports.

The only physical contact was “a female affectionately patting somebody on the back”, he said.

He added that it would be “quite improper to manhandle people in the division lobby”.

The Labour MP, Chris Bryant, said he saw up to 20 MPs – including the deputy prime minister, Thérèse Coffey, and the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg – surrounding Conservative MPs who were “wavering” on last night’s vote on fracking.

Bryant, who said he saw a Tory MP “manhandled”, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning:

It was very aggressive, very angry, there was a lot of shouting, there was a lot of pointing, gesticulating, there was at least one hand on another MP, and to me that was clear bullying, intimidation.

He added:

I saw a whole swathe of MPs effectively pushing one member straight through the door and I’ve seen photographic evidence of one MP’s hand on another.

He added that he had never seen scenes like those that unfolded last night. He said:

Honestly, this was the most extraordinary scene that I’ve seen in my time, and anyway, even if it has happened in the past, that is not how we should do our business – we are not the Italian parliament – and all of this is happening because there is complete chaos in government. There isn’t a government.

When the thread of government sort of falls apart, this is what will end up happening day in day out: you will just have complete and utter chaos. I had Tory MPs later in the evening literally, including one whip actually, crying on my shoulder. They are in the territory of being utterly desperate about what’s going on.

Updated

The Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, who has already called for Liz Truss to quit, has said the prime minister should be kicked out of No 10 today.

The PM’s position is “wholly untenable”, he told the BBC. He said:

One of the qualities she has shown is a lack of self-knowledge through this whole process because it ought to have been clear that she did not have the capacity to lead our party and I don’t think she should have put herself up for the leadership in the first place.

Updated

Tory MP says Liz Truss ‘has 12 hours to turn ship around’

The Conservative MP, Simon Hoare, said today and tomorrow are “crunch days” for the government.

Asked if Liz Truss is “up to the job” of being prime minister, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was a “glass half full sort of person” but that the “score sheet isn’t looking very good”.

He said:

Can the ship be turned around? Yes. But I think there is about 12 hours to do it. I think today, tomorrow are crunch days.

He said he felt “anger, despair, sadness” as “good work which has been done over recent years appears to be dissolving before our eyes”.

There was a “growing sense of pessimism in all wings of the Tory party”, he added.

Updated

Here’s more from the transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who said Suella Braverman resigned as home secretary because she felt she had “let herself down” by breaching the ministerial code.

She told Sky News:

She resigned in her letter, which she put out yesterday, set out that she felt that she had fallen below the standard by breaching the ministerial code, by allowing documents to be shared ... in an unsecure way.

And she felt that she had, you know, let herself down and therefore, as she is someone who has always worked to the highest standard, she is a woman of integrity, she felt she had to step down.

Updated

We received this text from No 10 at 1.33am saying the fracking vote *was* a confidence vote after all … and that MPs who missed it would face “proportionate disciplinary action”, although it’s unclear what that means.

No 10 said:

The Prime Minister has full confidence in the Chief and Deputy Chief Whip. Throughout the day, the whips had treated the vote as a confidence motion. The minister at the despatch box was told, mistakenly, by Downing Street to say that it was not.

However, Conservative MPs were fully aware that the vote was subject to a three line whip. The whips will now be speaking to Conservative MPs who failed to support the government. Those without a reasonable excuse for failing to vote with the government can expect proportionate disciplinary action.

It looks like 36 Tory MPs missed the vote for various reasons, including those who got permission beforehand, including Boris Johnson who is on holiday in a luxury Caribbean resort. Initially it looked like Liz Truss herself had missed the vote, but we’re told she did in fact vote … just forgot to swipe her pass.

Things still aren’t clear though as the cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan has just been on the radio …

Updated

The transport secretary, Anne Marie-Trevelyan, said she was “shocked” by reports of MPs being physically “manhandled” into voting in the Commons last night.

Speaking on Sky News, the cabinet minister said she “wasn’t there” as she had voted earlier. She said:

I don’t think it’s ever acceptable for any party – and we have seen this happen before, where whips perhaps over-egg their encouragement to get people to vote in the appropriate way – that is never right.

The one thing that our parliament is so revered around the world for is that we allow each of us to vote with our conscience, and indeed with our government on important matters.

Updated

MPs have rejected a Labour motion that would guarantee parliamentary time for a bill to ban fracking.

Despite there being 357 Conservative MPs in Parliament, there were just 326 votes against Labour’s motion.

Dozens of Tory backbenchers and ministers had previously voiced opposition to the resumption of shale gas drilling in England, were placed in a difficult position when party whips said the motion would be treated as a confidence motion in Liz Truss’s government.

Find out how your MP voted:

Updated

The transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has said Tory MPs who disobeyed last night’s three-line whip will face “appropriate action”.

She told Sky News:

The situation is always very clear that the parliamentary managers will discuss with colleagues who didn’t vote with the three-line whip, why that was.

She went on to say that “appropriate discussions” will continue:

If there is a sense that some were doing so for not reasonable reasons, the appropriate discipline will be enacted.

Updated

Minister 'not aware' whether chief whip resigned last night

The transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has said last night’s fracking motion was not a vote of confidence in the prime minister.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, she said the motion was “a very important vote” to ensure the government “did not allow Labour to try to hijack the order paper”.

Trevelyan appears not to have received the Downing Street memo from 1.30am this morning that said the fracking vote was, in fact, a confidence vote.

Trevelyan went on to say that she is not aware of whether the chief whip, Wendy Morton, resigned last night.

Asked whether Morton resigned and was later convinced to stay in her role, Trevelyan said:

I wasn’t there. I voted early in the lobbies and then had important security issues to deal with at the Department for Transport, so I didn’t follow the machinations in detail.

Both Morton and her deputy, Craig Whittaker, are currently in their posts “and that’s good news”, she added.

Asked about a report that Tory members were seen being “physically manhandled” by ministers into voting for the government at last night’s fracking vote, Trevelyan once again said she “wasn’t there”.

Updated

More on that chaotic fracking vote last night, from Kirsty Buchanan, a former Truss adviser.

The BBC political editor, Chris Mason, has spoken to a “very senior Conservative” whose view is that Liz Truss’s actions were “unforgivable”, “terrible” and “appalling”.

“She has stuffed the party, the country, and there’ll be a general election.”

Updated

In other news, Keir Starmer is expected to make a keynote address today at the TUC annual congress in Brighton. He may be making a few judicious tweaks to that speech this morning – he’s due up shortly after 10am.

Some reports that Suella Braverman is to make a resignation statement in the Commons today. It would come after this letter heavily criticising the direction of the current government. You can read Aubrey Allegretti’s analysis of that letter here.

Former CBI chief and now head of Business London, Paul Dreschler, has told the Today programme that two-thirds of the cabinet needs to go, saying the political crisis is worsening the others happening right now, such as the cost of living crisis.

Updated

A long question, a short answer.

Away from the present crisis to one some might say happened a little while ago but continues to rumble on. Brexit correspondent Lisa O’Carroll has this report on the effect of the withdrawal on trade. Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute has found trade from the UK to the EU is down 16% on the levels anticipated had Brexit not happened. Trade in the opposite direction has dropped even further, by 20%, it found.

Yesterday’s scenes at the fracking vote were “total, absolute, abject chaos”, said ITV’s Tom Bradby.

Jamie Grierson has taken a look at the new home secretary, Grant Shapps, the Sunak-backing former transport secretary who was previously sacked by Liz Truss.

A powerful paragraph on the topic of “who is Grant Shapps”:

“… to truly answer the question, one also has to ponder “who is Michael Green?” – the pseudonym Shapps admitted to using when he held a second job as the founder of a web publishing business.

Other names he was alleged to use were “Sebastian Fox” or “Corinne Stockheath”.

Updated

Lord Barwell agreed with the sentiments of Charles Walker and backed calls for a new prime minster last night.

He told the World Tonight: “The country is a crisis and it needs clear leadership and I think the right thing to do is to turn to the person [Rishi Sunak] whose judgment has been consistently vindicated.”

When asked whether there should be a general election, the former No 10 chief of staff under Theresa May said he wanted his party to “get its House in order, then we can see where public opinion sits”.

Updated

Attempting to steady the ship is Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale, who has told PA news agency that the chaos over the fracking vote had been a “storm in a teacup”, and that the appointment of Shapps could strengthen Truss’s position.

“The [Suella] Braverman issue is rather more fundamental, but I think on balance it’s possible the prime minister might come out of it actually stronger rather than weaker,” he is quoted as saying. “We need people in the government who are grown-up and experienced and understand real politics.”

Transport secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan is expected to do the morning media interviews today.

Updated

Here’s a wrap of Thursday’s UK front pages. The words “turmoil” and “chaos” feature on more than a few, and from across the political spectrum.

Tory backbencher John Redwood is up early to give his two cents on Suella Braverman’s resignation.

Updated

John Crace’s account of an excruciating PMQs paints a picture of a prime minister very much on borrowed time, and at the mercy of others.

Then Keir Starmer stood up to administer further wounds. None fatal. It suits Labour to have an ersatz prime minister who everyone knows is on life support. This was the Labour leader at his most surgical. His most forensic. Good gags, better soundbites. Short and not so sweet. Truss had nothing to say. Other than “sorry”, “I take the tough decisions” – she really doesn’t, the tough decisions are all made on her behalf – and “what has Labour done about the economic crisis?”. Er … a word to the dim. Labour hasn’t been in government for more than 12 years. It didn’t cause the chaos nor is it in a position to do anything about it. Not yet, anyway.

Updated

Here is the video of a furious Charles Walker, the veteran Tory MP who accused those who backed Liz Truss for PM of acting out of self-interest.

He later told Radio 4’s The World Tonight: “I am really pleased that the home secretary has resigned, because I didn’t think she was up to the job. So let’s not beat around the bush here. And I expect the prime minister to resign very soon because she’s not up to her job either... I will shed no tears for either of them.

“It’s chaos and most of my colleagues have had enough. There may be 30 out there that still feel that somehow this shamble is recoverable. But about 330 of us have now given up all hope that the current PM can navigate her way out of this.

“We need to take ownership of this as a political party ... the grown-ups in our party, and a few do exist, need to meet in a papal conclave over the next 24 hours and decide on a coronation. I don’t want any nonsense of votes I want the best person we’ve got to become prime minister.”

If it is all too bleak today, you can find some light-hearted solace in some of the reaction to Suella Braverman’s departure. I’m looking specifically at the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati.

Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker appeared on Peston last night to voice his anger at Tory MPs who abstained during the crucial fracking vote, and to claim that Liz Truss “cannot be removed” from power.

“The prime minister cannot be removed, whether she goes or not is up to her,” he said. “So if members of Parliament just seek to lay waste to government business and our reputation, they can do that, but they can’t remove the prime minister. All they can do is destroy the Conservative party and the prospects of decent centre-right government in this country.”

Also: “Rishi would be a good prime minister.”

Abstaining Tory MPs face disciplinary action

Robert Peston says Tory MPs who abstained at yesterday’s fracking vote can expect “proportionate disciplinary action”, because it was a confidence vote, according to Downing Street.

More than 40 Conservative MPs failed to back Liz Truss on the vote, amid claims of intimidation and bullying and general confusion.

Tory whips had earlier written to MPs telling them the vote was being seen as confidence measure, however the climate minister, Graham Stuart, later told the Commons: “Quite clearly this is not a confidence vote.”

Updated

Summary

Welcome to the UK politics blog, launching a little earlier today given the seismic nature of Wednesday’s tumultuous proceedings. Here’s a summary to catch you up:

  • The British government appears at risk of collapse after home secretary Suella Braverman launched a stinging attack on the prime minister, Liz Truss, after being forced to resign.

  • Braverman’s resignation letter included a pointed rebuke of Truss. Braverman said she resigned because she sent an official government document to an MP and this was “a technical infringement of the rules”. However, her letter also contained sharp comments about Truss’s leadership, saying: “I have concerns about the direction of this government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have had serious concerns about this government’s commitment to honouring manifesto commitments …” In a cursory reply, Truss told Braverman: “I accept your resignation and respect the decision you have made.”

  • Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, said the Tory party was “imploding” after a day of chaos in Westminster. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the government was “falling apart at the seams”.

  • Truss appointed a new home secretary, Grant Shapps, on Thursday afternoon, to replace Braverman. Shapps is seen as more of a moderate. He was sacked as transport secretary by Truss after she reportedly told him there was “no room at the inn” for him after she became PM. He backed Truss’s rival, Rishi Sunak, after dropping his own run for the party leadership.

  • With a tenure of 43 days, Braverman is the shortest-serving home secretary since the Duke of Wellington who lasted just a month in 1834. Her exit comes just days after Kwasi Kwarteng was replaced as chancellor by Jeremy Hunt, anther Conservative moderate.

  • The chorus of voices demanding Truss resign after a series of policy u-turns and departures from her cabinet is growing. Lord David Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator, has written in the Telegraph calling on Truss to resign. “Truss just can’t stay in office for one very obvious reason: she campaigned against the policies she is now implementing.”

  • Sir Charles Walker, a veteran Tory backbencher, said on Wednesday night that he expected Truss to resign “very soon”, and that he was “really pleased” at Braverman’s resignation. He told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight: “I expect the prime minister to resign very soon because she’s not up to her job either … I will shed no tears for either of them.” Earlier in the Commons he spoke of his anger at the scenes in Westminster, calling them a “pitiful reflection of the Conservative parliamentary party at every level”.

  • William Wragg, a Conservative MP, said he has written a letter to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, calling for a vote of no confidence in Truss.

  • The Conservative chief and deputy chief whip “remain in post”, Downing Street said, after earlier reports suggesting Wendy Morton and Craig Whittaker had quit after chaotic scenes in parliament over a vote on fracking.

  • Labour’s Chris Bryant said he saw Tory MPs being “physically manhandled” and “bullied” in the voting lobbies during the vote, which the government ultimately won. Bryant told Sky News: “There was a bunch of Conservative members who were completely uncertain about whether they were allowed to vote with the Labour motion because of what had been said in the chamber about whether it’s a free vote or a confidence vote. There was a group – including several cabinet ministers – who were basically shouting at them. At least one member was physically pulled through the door into the voting lobby.”

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