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Former British prime minister Liz Truss has sent an official letter telling Sir Keir Starmer to stop claiming he “spoiled the economy”.
The cease-and-desist letter, sent on Wednesday by UK law firm Asserson and seen by the Financial Times, says reports about his actions are “false and defamatory”.
The letter says the prime minister has caused “significant damage to his reputation” and even said the comments may have contributed to him losing his parliamentary seat in last year's general election.
“Our client requests that you immediately cease and desist from repeating these defamatory statements,” the letter said. “We sincerely hope that this issue can be resolved now and will stop causing any harm to our customer.”
Starmer doubled down on his earlier comments on Thursday. A spokesman for the prime minister said: “I don't think he (the prime minister) is the only person in the country who has this view in relation to the previous government's handling of the economy.”
Truss's short term as prime minister in 2022 has seen the pound fall and UK borrowing costs rise after she oversees a budget that includes £45bn of unfunded tax cuts. He resigned after that only 44 days in officesince it almost canceled the entire Budget.
His intervention this week is likely to raise eyebrows in Westminster given Truss' status as a campaigner for free speech. Last summer he threw his support behind Elon Musk's free speech agenda and declared on X: “I am appalled by the attack on free speech in Britain and Europe. We cannot be truly free without free speech.”
He has shown limited tolerance for criticism during his time in office, storming out of office after being criticized for his economic record at last year's event.
TrussStarmer's lawyers accused Starmer of making three defamatory statements in June last year when he said he had “disrupted the economy”, which they said were “false and misleading” and “grossly defamatory and inexcusable”.
The letter, which was first reported by the Telegraph, asks Starmer to stop making the allegation and says the request was “made in the context of basic social norms at the expense of high politics”.
The appeal to Starmer from Truss comes as the former prime minister has spoken out on social media platform X in recent days about his support for Musk's criticism of Starmer and his handling of historical grooming cases involving the sexual abuse of girls.
Truss shared Musk's tweets and commented that the billionaire was “good for the taking”.