Liz Truss’s lawyers tell Keir Starmer to stop saying she has ‘broken the economy’

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Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss has sent a legal letter asking Sir Keir Starmer to stop claiming she has “destroyed the economy”.

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

The letter claims the Prime Minister has caused “serious harm to her reputation” and even says 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 read. “We sincerely hope that this matter will now be resolved and that you will refrain from causing any further harm to our customers.”

Starmer doubled down on his previous comments on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “I do not think that (the Prime Minister) is the only person in the country who shares this view regarding the previous government’s handling of the economy.”

Truss’ short stint as Prime Minister in 2022 saw the pound fall and the UK’s borrowing costs rise after she oversaw a “mini” budget that included £45 billion in unfunded tax cuts. She resigned after that Only 44 days in officehaving reversed almost the entire budget.

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

She has shown limited tolerance for criticism during her time in office, walking off stage after being heckled about her economic record at an event last year.

GearsStarmer’s lawyers accuse him of making defamatory statements on three occasions in June last year when he said she “broke the economy”, which they claim are “false and misleading” and “blatantly and indefensibly defamatory”.

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

The request from Truss to Starmer comes as the former Prime Minister has been outspoken on the social media platform

Truss shared Musk’s tweets and commented that the billionaire was “right to attack her.”