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| Photo Credit: AP. |
LONDON (AP) — Liz Truss has been elected as the Conservative Party’s new leader, the party announced Monday, and she will take office Tuesday as Britain’s new prime minister to steer the country through an acute cost-of-living crisis.
The
47-year-old Truss, who is currently foreign secretary, beat former Treasury
chief Rishi Sunak after a leadership contest in which only about 170,000
dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote. Truss
received 81,326 votes, compared with Sunak’s 60,399.
She faces
immediate pressure to deliver on her promises to tackle the cost-of-living
crisis walloping the U.K. and an economy heading into a potentially lengthy recession.
Queen
Elizabeth II is scheduled to formally appoint Truss as Britain’s prime minister
on Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the queen’s Balmoral estate in
Scotland, where the monarch is spending her summer, rather than Buckingham
Palace in London.
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.
Meanwhile
tens of thousands of workers have gone on strike to demand better pay to keep
up with relentlessly rising costs. Inflation is above 10% for the first time
since the 1980s, and the Bank of England has forecast that will reach a 42-year
high of 13.3% in October. That’s largely driven by soaring energy bills, which
will jump 80% for the average household starting next month.
“I will
deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the
energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the
long term issues we have on energy supply,” Truss told party members after she
was elected.
“I know that
our beliefs resonate with the British people: Our beliefs in freedom, in the
ability to control your own life, in low taxes, in personal responsibility,”
she added. “I know that’s why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and
as your party leader I intend to deliver what we promised those voters right
across our great country.”
Truss has
won the support of many Conservatives with her zeal in rolling back state
intervention and slashing taxes. Both she and her rival Sunak have spoken of
their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, who was prime minister from 1979 to
1990, and her free-market, small-government economics.
But it’s not
clear how Truss’s right-wing brand of conservatism, which played so well with
party members — who represent far less than 1% of the U.K.’s adult population —
will go down with the wider British public, especially those most in need of
government relief to afford essentials like heating their homes this winter.
Truss has
promised to act “immediately” to tackle soaring energy bills, but declined to
give any details so far.
“The
Conservative Party members wanted that message of tax cutting. The country, I
would guess, less so,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of London’s Chatham House
think tank.
“At the
moment you’ve got people deeply rattled, many very, very afraid going into a
year where all they can see are rising costs,” Maddox added. “Until she’s got
an answer on that, she doesn’t have a claim to the popularity of the country, I
think.”
While the
economy is certain to dominate the first months of the new premier’s term,
Truss will also have to steer the U.K. on the international stage in the face
of Russia’s war in Ukraine, an increasingly assertive China and ongoing
tensions with the European Union over the aftermath of Brexit — especially in
Northern Ireland.
Truss will
be the U.K.’s fourth Conservative prime minister in six years, entering Downing
Street following Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron.
Johnson was
forced to resign after a series of ethics scandals that peaked in July, when
dozens of cabinet ministers and lower-level officials quit in protest over his
handling of allegations of sexual misconduct by a senior member of his
government.
Both Truss
and Sunak were key players within Johnson’s Cabinet, though Sunak resigned in
the last days of Johnson’s time in office.
A Truss
government may not sit well with many because it reminds voters too much of
Johnson’s misdeeds, said Steven Fielding, a professor of political history at
Nottingham University.
“She’s
basically been elected as Boris Johnson 2.0 by Conservative members — she’s
made it very clear that she is a loyal Boris Johnson supporter,” he said. “I
think she’s going to find it very difficult to disentangle herself from the
whole Johnson shadow.”
Truss and
Sunak were the final two candidates whittled down from an initial field of 11
leadership hopefuls.
Under
Britain’s parliamentary system of government, the center-right Conservative
Party was allowed to hold an internal election to select a new party leader and
prime minister without going to the wider electorate. A new general election
isn’t required until December 2024.