The BBC has reported that Britain’s finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked from his current position.
This follows a meeting with Prime Minister Liz Truss at Downing Street on Friday, October 14, 2022, the report added.
Prior to the confirmation by the BBC, suggestions were rife on social media, including one by the Political Editor of the news platform; Steven Swinford on Twitter.
“I’m told that Kwasi Kwarteng is being sacked as Chancellor as Liz Truss prepares to reverse the mini-Budget. “Not clear who will be replacing him,” he wrote.
Kwasi Kwarteng reportedly announced among other things, a £43 billion package of unfunded tax cuts in his “mini” Budget unveiled late last month.
Mr. Kwarteng’s tax-cutting announcement, made on September 23, is said to have caused panic in the financial markets, affecting the pound while increasing government borrowing costs and leading to a withdrawal of some offers for home purchase loans by lenders.
He has since been under pressure to reverse his fiscal plan after it seemingly rattled markets and created an uproar among politicians.
Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng argued that the tax-cutting measures will promote economic growth among other things.
Earlier reports suggested that the chancellor of the Exchequer abruptly left an IMF meeting in Washington DC, with international finance ministers on Friday and returned home to face a political crisis amid mounting calls for the government to scrap a package of unfunded tax cuts that have rattled financial markets.
British Prime Minister to announce tax cuts:
Meanwhile, it is expected that Prime Minister, Truss will hold a news conference in due course, as speculation builds that the government could reverse more of the tax cuts announced in its mini-budget.
Earlier, a No 10 source told the BBC that Truss thought the chancellor was “doing an excellent job”
The PM faces growing calls from within her party to rethink her economic plans, with one Tory MP telling the BBC: “It’s checkmate, we’re screwed”, the BBC further reported.
Background:
Kwasi Kwarteng, 47, took over as head of the British Treasury in September 2022, after new UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss, took over; with the responsibility of trying to pull the UK out of a serious cost-of-living crisis without plunging the public finances into the abyss.
He took over from Nadhim Zahawi, an Iraqi-born Kurd, who himself succeeded Rishi Sunak, of Indian origin, and Sajid Javid, with Pakistani roots, embodying a more inclusive face of the Conservative party.
His sack makes him the second shortest-serving UK chancellor on record.
The shortest serving chancellor, Iain Macleod, according to the BBC, died of a heart attack 30 days after taking the job in 1970.
Since 2019, the UK has had four chancellors, including Nadhim Zahawi who served the third shortest tenure with 63 days during a short-lived reshuffle under Boris Johnson, and Sajid Javid who served 204 days – the fourth shortest tenure on record.
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