The party said Truss, Britain’s current foreign secretary, won about 57 percent of the Conservative member vote, compared with about 43 percent for former finance minister Rishi Sunak. Truss, 47, will become Britain’s third female prime minister, following Thatcher, who ruled from 1979 to 1990, and Theresa May, who served from 2016 to 2019. Party members have embraced Truss pledges to cut taxes and red tape and maintain Britain’s steadfast support for Ukraine. But to critics, she is an inflexible ideologue whose right-wing policies will not help Britain deal with the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic, Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mark Littlewood, a libertarian commentator who has known Truss since her university days, said she is less a conservative than a “radical” who — like Thatcher — wants to “overturn the intervention of the state” in people’s lives. “I expect a lot of fireworks, a lot of controversy and a lot of action,” he said.
WATCHES | Truss pledges to help people in Britain suffering from inflation:
Liz Truss promises ‘bold plan’ as new leader of UK Conservative Party
The new leader of the UK Conservative Party, Liz Truss, has promised to cut taxes, tackle the country’s energy crisis and tackle the struggling National Health Service.
“Consistent and determined and honest”
Born in Oxford in 1975, Mary Elizabeth Truss is the daughter of a maths teacher and a nurse who took her to anti-nuclear and anti-Thatcher protests as a child, where she remembered shouting: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – out, out, out !” In a speech in 2018, she said she began developing her own political views early, “arguing against my socialist parents in our left-wing household”. After attending public high school, Truss went on to Oxford University, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics – the degree of choice for many aspiring politicians – and was president of the university branch of the Liberal Democratic Party. The fiscally centrist Liberal Democrats support constitutional reform and civil liberties, and Truss was an enthusiastic member, putting up “Free the Weed” posters calling for the decriminalization of marijuana and arguing in a speech for the abolition of the monarchy. Littlewood, who was a fellow Oxford Lib Dems and now heads the Institute of Economic Affairs, a free-market think tank, remembers Truss as “headstrong, determined and honest”. “You were never in any doubt about where he stood on an issue or a person,” he said. Some say Rishi Sunak’s disloyalty to Johnson cost the former Treasury chief his leadership. (Rui Vieira/The Associated Press)
Anti-Brexit but calls herself ‘Eurosceptic’
After Oxford, Truss joined the Conservative Party “when it was clearly fashionable”, she later said. He worked as an economist for the energy company Shell and the telecommunications company Cable and Wireless and for a centre-right think tank, while dabbling in Conservative politics and espousing free-market Thatcherite views. He stood for Parliament unsuccessfully twice before being elected to represent the East of England seat of South West Norfolk in 2010. He founded the Free Enterprise group of Thatcherite Tory MPs who produced ‘Britannia Unchained’, a political treatise which infamously included the claim that British workers are ‘among the worst idlers in the world’. In Britain’s 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union, Truss sided with the losing “remain” side, although she says she has always been a natural Eurosceptic. Since the vote, she has won over Brexiteers with her uncompromising approach to the EU. He became justice secretary but was demoted by May to a more junior role at the Treasury in 2017. When May was ousted over her repeated failure to break a political deadlock over Brexit, Truss was among Johnson’s first supporters to replace her. When she won, Johnson made Truss trade secretary, a role in which she used Instagram to gain recognition around the world, signing post-Brexit trade deals and raising her profile. Johnson was ousted after months of controversial revelations, including that he partied with members of his caucus during the COVID-19 restrictions. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/The Associated Press)
Mixed reviews as Secretary of State
In September 2021 she was appointed Foreign Secretary, Britain’s top diplomat. Her performance has drawn mixed reviews. Many praise her firm response to the invasion of Ukraine and she secured the release of two British citizens jailed in Iran, where her predecessors had failed. But EU leaders and officials who hoped it would set a softer tone for Britain’s relations with the bloc have been disappointed. Amid a trade row, Truss introduced legislation to tear up parts of the binding UK-EU divorce deal signed by both sides. The 27-nation bloc is taking legal action against Britain in return. Truss’s perceived loyalty to Johnson, who remains popular with many Tories, also helped her win the leadership. Many in the party cited Sunak’s decision to quit Johnson’s cabinet in July as a sign against him. Truss did not resign, saying she was a “loyal person” — although she had flirted with party members for months at “fizz with Liz” events to drum up support for a possible leadership bid. The wider British electorate is likely to prove a more difficult audience to win over. Times are tough and getting tougher as inflation soars and Britain’s cost of living crisis worsens. The Truss’ focus on stimulating the economy through tax cuts is unlikely to provide much short-term relief. And he doesn’t have long to convince voters that he’s on the right track. The next national elections are due in two years.
