- UK Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday.
- A video of a Tory MP tearing apart Truss captures the political fury that led to her quitting.
Liz Truss resigned in dramatic fashion on Thursday, marking a new record for a UK government falling apart.
A viral video from the night before she went helps explain why. It shows the longtime Conservative MP Charles Walker tearing apart Truss and her supporters, whom he blamed for trashing the party's reputation.
The clip, which was shared on Twitter by BBC reporter Dan Johnson, shows Walker speaking to BBC News in the lobby of the House of Commons shortly after a chaotic vote on natural-gas extraction.
—Dan Johnson (@DanJohnsonNews) October 19, 2022
The vote was marred by accusations that Conservative MPs were bullied and "manhandled" into voting in support of the government.
"This whole affair is inexcusable," said Walker in the BBC News interview. "It's a pitiful reflection on the Conservative parliamentary party at every level and it reflects really badly, obviously, on the government of the day."
A string of Conservative MPs then publicly called on Truss to step down, adding to the pressure on the prime minister to quit which began in response to her disastrous "mini-budget" which was repudiated by financial markets and which Truss mostly abandoned.
She resigned on Thursday afternoon, saying that she could not deliver the mandate that she was elected on, and would leave the role once a successor is appointed within a week.
Asked if there was any coming back from Wednesday's events, Walker told BBC News: "I don't think so. And I have to say I've been of that view really since two weeks ago.
"This is an absolute disgrace. As a Tory MP of 17 years who's never been a minister, who's got on with it loyally most of the time, I think it's a shambles and a disgrace. I think it is utterly appalling. I'm livid."
In the viral video, which had more than six-and-a-half million views as of Thursday afternoon, Walker directed some of his anger at the Conservative MPs who helped put Truss into power.
"I hope it was worth it for the ministerial red box," he said. "I hope it was worth it to sit around the cabinet table because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary."
Recent polling shows the Conservatives trailing behind Labour by record-breaking numbers.
"I've had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box," Walker continued. "Not because it's in the national interest, but because it's in their own personal interest to achieve ministerial position."