Liz Truss emerges UK Prime Minister-designate
NEWS DIGEST – Liz Truss will be Britain’s next prime minister after she was elected leader of the ruling Conservative Party on Monday, ending a race to succeed Boris Johnson, NBC News reports.
Mrs Truss, 47, has served as foreign secretary and was the clear front-runner for the job. She clinched victory by appealing to the right-wing party faithful as a tax-cutting, anti-“woke” candidate who would take a hard line on post-Brexit dealings with the European Union.
She inherits a country facing a dire winter energy crisis, widespread strikes and economic recession — as well as long-term questions about the erosion of its cherished public services and its status as a world power after Brexit. Those issues were largely absent from discussion in the two-month leadership race, which saw her defeat former finance minister Rishi Sunak by 57% to 43% in the final runoff.
That’s a smaller margin than opinion polling had suggested and than her supporters may have hoped.
As leader of the country’s largest party, she will be appointed prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on Tuesday, a break from tradition for the aging monarch who has always performed the royal duty in London.
Truss, addressing a crowd of Conservative activists and lawmakers at an announcement event in the capital, joked that the lengthy leadership race was “one of the longest job interviews in history.”
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“Thanks for putting your faith in me to lead our Conservative Party, the greatest political party on earth,” said Truss, who will become the country’s third female leader, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.
Truss will succeed Johnson, who announced his resignation in July when six months of rolling scandals — principally Covid lockdown-breaching parties held at the prime minister’s Downing Street residence and office — finally culminated in a critical mass of his own lawmakers abandoning him.
Most of Britain’s 67 million people had no say in Truss’ ascension. Instead, she was chosen by the party’s 180,000 members, who are 97% white, skew older, wealthy and male, and lean to the right of Britain’s political spectrum. Truss does not appear to be hugely popular in polls of the broader public and was not the top choice of her party’s lawmakers, but she was the overwhelming favorite of its members.
The next general election might not be until early 2025; polls currently give the opposition Labour Party large leads over the Conservatives following the acrimony around Johnson’s fall from grace.
Top of Truss’ priorities will be the country’s cost-of-living crisis: skyrocketing bills for food and energy (household electricity and gas bills are set to triple); fears of blackouts this winter; and inflation sending real-terms wages falling. Millions of people may face the choice between heating their homes or feeding their families, while thousands of small businesses say they will fold unless the government takes action.
Truss has promised to announce her plans on the issue this week. In her acceptance speech she vowed: “I will deliver on the energy crisis.”
But for her, tackling the crisis is doubly hard because her party is bitterly divided on what to do about it.
