Sir Keir Starmer has called for an immediate general election in the wake of Liz Truss’s resignation.

The PM announced her resignation after a chaotic 44 days in office during which she lost the confidence of Tory MPs and the public and oversaw economic turbulence.

Read more: Liz Truss resigns as Prime Minister in Downing Street statement

Read more: LIVE: Liz Truss resigns as Prime Minister and Conservative leader

She is set to become the shortest serving Prime Minister in history after she battled an open revolt from Conservatives demanding her departure.

Speaking from a lectern in Downing Street, Ms Truss said she had told the King she was resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party as she recognised she “cannot deliver the mandate” which Tory members gave her little over six weeks ago.

She held talks with the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservatives Sir Graham Brady and agreed to a fresh leadership election “to be completed within the next week”.

Read more: Liz Truss: Hartlepool MP Jill Mortimer submits letter of no confidence

“This will ensure that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plan and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security,” she added, as she was accompanied by husband Hugh O’Leary.

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

Mr Starmer demanded a general election “now” so that the nation can have “a chance at a fresh start”.

He 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.”

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