After a six-week-long gruelling campaign, Conservative Party leader Liz Truss beat Rishi Sunak to emerge Boris Johnson's successor in the UK prime ministerial elections. She becomes the third female prime minister of UK, beating Sunak by over 20,000 votes.
The winner of the contest was announced on Monday by Sir Graham Brady—chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs and returning officer of the leadership election.
Britain’s new prime minister was not voted in by the British voters, but by 1.6 lakh Conservative Party members constituting barely 0.3 per cent of the British electorate, and living predominantly in the Brexit heartlands in the south of England.
On the policy side, Truss and her rival Sunak held convergent positions on a lot of issues. No matter who wins, Britain’s policies on Brexit, the European Union, Northern Ireland and the Ukraine war would broadly remain the same. The difference was in the tone. Sunak was measured, while Truss was hawkish, projecting herself as a right-wing, radical Conservative, harsh with the EU, hard with Putin, tough with China, but gung-ho on NATO.
As Conservatives, both Truss and Sunak support small government, big business and low taxes. The crucial difference is on tax. Sunak plans to cut taxes after inflation is controlled. Truss pandered to the Brexiteers’ all-time top priority—embedding a low-tax regime and deregulating and hike defence expenditure.
Truzz's entry into politics
Truss entered the House of Commons in 2010 representing the rural South West Norfolk seat.
Just over four years after becoming an MP, Truss was inducted into the cabinet in 2014. After then PM David Cameron’s exit following the Brexit referendum fiasco, the newly ascendant Theresa May named her lord chancellor. Truss was the first woman in the history of the UK to head the justice ministry. But after a disastrous stint, May demoted her as number two in the treasury, a move which prompted observers to pen her political obituary. However, Truss’s uncanny knack of backing the winner ensured that when Boris Johnson became prime minister in 2019, she was back in the cabinet as international trade secretary. Her high-voltage performance was rewarded with a promotion to the foreign office last September after Dominic Raab was shunted out for his disastrous handling of Afghanistan.
Truss’s transformation perhaps started with Brexit. An original “remainer”, she even wrote an op-ed in The Sun arguing that leaving the European Union would be a triple tragedy involving more rules, more forms and more delays. But once Brexit was confirmed, Truss made a quick u-turn and clarified that she opposed Brexit only out of loyalty towards Cameron.
As foreign secretary, Truss gave Johnson complete support in shaping Britain’s aggressive response towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She hinted that the UK supported pushing Russia out of not just territories captured recently, but also from Crimea. She openly backed British citizens fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. She was also successful in securing the release of two British citizens imprisoned in Iran for the past six years.
Later on Tuesday afternoon, the newly appointed prime minister will arrive back at Downing Street to make her inaugural speech before getting on with the task of announcing key cabinet posts. Essential security briefings and handing over of nuclear codes are expected to also take place during the course of the day by senior officials. On Wednesday at 12 noon (GMT), Truss will address her first Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons.
-With inputs from Ajish P. Joy, Anita Pratap