Prime Minister Liz Truss has sacked Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng only 38 days after he assumed the position, the BBC has reported.
The news comes as Truss is set to announce yet another U-turn to Kwarteng's Mini Budget at 2pm today (14 October), according to multiple reports. The chancellor left the IMF annual meetings early to return to the UK this morning.
At around 1.30am last night, several journalists accompanying Kwarteng tweeted his departure, with BBC economics editor Faisal Islam citing Treasury sources that his early exit was to "engage across government and with MP colleagues on the Mini Budget".
The UK government is set to scrap plans to cut the corporation tax introduced in the Mini Budget. In his first parliamentary statement as chancellor last month, Kwarteng had pledged to scrap a corporation tax hike from 19% to 25% which had been scheduled for April next year by Rishi Sunak.
The corporation tax cut was one of Liz Truss' major planks of her Tory leadership campaign. However, she is now set to revert her plans and the rise will go ahead as planned.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, said: Kwarteng's removal as chancellor, making him one of the shortest holders of that office, hasn't done much to boost the pound, given that it has already rallied yesterday on hopes of a u-turn on the budget."
"Now the market will wait to see what is actually decided, and only then will it take a view on giving the government some support in terms of another bounce in GBPUSD and/or a drop in gilt yields. Liz Truss certainly isn't out of the woods yet."
