Boris Johnson announced he would be resigning as Britain’s Prime Minister in July. Now, his successor has been chosen. Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Truss, 47, who has served as the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 2021 and Minister for Women and Equalities since 2019, will be the next PM. Truss has been a Member of Parliament since 2010.
Per the AP:
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Conservative Party has chosen Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as the party’s new leader, putting her in line to be confirmed as prime minister.
Truss’s selection was announced Monday in London after a leadership election in which only the 180,000 dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote. Truss beat rival Rishi Sunak, the government’s former Treasury chief, by promising to increase defense spending and cut taxes, while refusing to say how she would address the cost-of-living crisis.
Truss received 81,326 votes to Sunak’s 60,399.
Next comes formal appointment by Queen Elizabeth II.
Truss and outgoing leader Boris Johnson will travel to Balmoral in Scotland tomorrow in order to meet with Queen Elizabeth II, as per Britain’s unwritten constitution.
The Queen must formally approve the formation of a new government led by Truss. Normally, these meetings would take place quickly at Buckingham Palace, which is a short distance from 10 Downing Street, but the 96-year-old monarch will stay at her Scottish residence this time.
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Once those formalities are finished, Truss will head back to London and arrive in Downing Street. She will announce her new Cabinet, which is likely to include many of her supporters during the contest.
Truss is inheriting strong headwinds.
The two-month leadership contest left Britain with a power vacuum at a time of growing discontent across the country amid spiraling energy and food costs. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made no major policy decisions since he announced he was stepping down on July 7, and officials insisted that measures to address the energy cost crisis would be deferred until his successor is in place.
This is particularly true given that her margin of victory was more narrow than anticipated.
What could this mean for her leadership?
It could mean that she cannot run roughshod over her MPs. Truss could find that she has to accommodate a wider range of views from her party, which could mean embracing Sunak’s ideas for helping Britons with the cost-of-living crisis and a less aggressive approach to tax cuts – especially corporation tax.
Many Conservative MPs are privately very worried that Truss’s modern-day Thatcherism could cost them the next election and will be leaping on the surprisingly low margin of victory to encourage the next PM to soften her economic stance.
A bit of background on Truss: She was born in Oxford, England. Her father was a professor of mathematics and her mother a nurse and teacher. She’s described her parents as “to the left of Labour.” Truss herself started out on the left before migrating rightward:
Truss was active in the Liberal Democrats. She was president of Oxford University Liberal Democrats and a member of the national executive committee of Liberal Democrat Youth and Students (LDYS). During her time as a Liberal Democrat, Truss supported the legalisation of cannabis and the abolition of the monarchy,[13][14] and campaigned against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.[15][16]
Truss joined the Conservative Party in 1996.[17][18]