People in the United Kingdom are calling for a General Election after Liz Truss resigned as Prime Minister on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters outside of Number 10 Downing Street, Truss said that she entered office during a time of "great economic and international instability". However, she added: "I recognize - given the situation - I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party."
She then announced that she has spoken to King Charles III and would be resigning as leader of the Conservative party, and therefore as UK Prime Minister.
Truss added that a leadership contest would take place within the Conservative Party next week in order to name a new Tory leader and PM.
However, following the heavy criticism of the Conservative Party amid the Cost of Living Crisis, the fact that Truss is now the shortest-serving PM in UK history, and that the news means the UK will have had three Conservative PMs by the end of the year, people online are calling for a general election.
Alastair Campbell - a journalist and former spokesperson for Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman - tweeted: "General. Election. Now. Or take to the streets …. Five Prime Ministers in six years. Just fuck off. All of them."
London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted: "General election, now. Our city and country has never needed a Labour government more."
Activist Howard Beckett added: "Prime Ministers should not be selected by MPs, they should be elected by people. There is a democratic deficit in this country.
"General election now."
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon agreed, tweeting: "There are no words to describe this utter shambles adequately. It’s beyond hyperbole - and parody.
"Reality [though] is that ordinary people are paying the price. The interests of the Tory party should concern no-one right now.
"A General Election is now a democratic imperative."
Ash Sarkar added: "The Conservative Party imposed one of the worst Prime Ministers the country has ever seen on the country without a General Election.
"And now, they want a chance to do it all again."
And the tweets continued:
Labour leader Sir Keir Stahmer has also called for a General Election. Speaking to union delegates at the TUC congress in Brighton on Thursday, he said, per The Guardian: "All the failures of the past 12 years have now come to the boil We need a general election now."
"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," he added.