Liz Truss lawyers tell Keir Starmer to stop saying she ‘crashed the economy’

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Former British prime minister Liz Truss has sent a legal letter telling Sir Keir Starmer to stop claiming she “crashed the economy”.

The cease and desist letter, sent on Wednesday by UK law firm Asserson and seen by the Financial Times, claims statements about her actions are “false and defamatory”.

The letter claims the prime minister has caused “serious harm to her reputation” and even said such comments may have contributed to her losing her parliamentary seat in last year’s general election.

“Our client requests that you immediately cease and desist from repeating the defamatory statements,” the letter stated. “We sincerely hope that this matter can now be resolved and that you will refrain from causing any further damage to our client.”

Starmer doubled down on his past comments on Thursday. The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “I don’t think the [prime minister] is the only person in the country who shares that view in relation to the previous government’s handling of the economy.”

Truss’s brief stint as prime minister in 2022 saw the pound plunge and UK borrowing costs rise after she oversaw a “mini” Budget that included £45bn of unfunded tax cuts. She resigned after just 44 days in office, having almost reversed the entire Budget.

Her intervention this week is likely to raise eyebrows in Westminster given Truss’s status as a staunch free speech campaigner. Last summer she threw her support behind Elon Musk’s free speech agenda and declared on X: “I am appalled by the attacks on free speech in Britain and Europe. We can’t be truly free without free speech.”

She has shown limited tolerance for criticism of her time in office, storming offstage after being heckled about her economic record at an event last year.

Truss’s lawyers accuse Starmer of making defamatory statements on three occasions in June last year when he said she “crashed the economy”, which they allege are “false and misleading” and “grossly defamatory and indefensible”.

The letter, which was first reported by the Telegraph, asks Starmer to stop making the allegation and states that the request “is made in the context of the basic levels of civility which is due between senior politicians”.

The request to Starmer from Truss comes as the former prime minister has been vocal on social media platform X in recent days in relation to her support of Musk’s criticism of Starmer and the handling of historic grooming cases involving sexual exploitation of girls.

Truss has shared Musk’s tweets and commented that the billionaire “is right to take them on”.