Liz Truss, until now foreign minister of the United Kingdomwas appointed this Monday as the new leader of the Conservative Party and will succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister, with the cost of living crisis as the great challenge of his mandate and the sights set on elections in the next two years.
Queen Elizabeth II will receive Truss on Tuesday at her summer residence in Balmoral, Scotland, and will entrust him with the formation of a government with which she will have to face inflation soaring above 10% and the prospect of a winter marked by the challenge to ensure energy supply.
The still head of the Foreign Office, who won the “Tory” primaries with 57% of the vote against former Economy Minister Rishi Sunak, stressed in a speech before conservative deputies and affiliates in London that the ideological principles of her government will be the same that he has defended during the campaign: “Freedom, low taxes and individual responsibility”.
Truss, the third woman to govern the United Kingdom, comes to power with the promise of applying liberal recipes that have earned her constant comparison with former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
His priority since he arrives at the official Downing Street office will be, above reducing the debt accumulated during the pandemic, to reverse the tax increases that his predecessor had programmed and try to boost investment and growth.
During his first days at the head of the Executive, he is expected to announce a comprehensive package of measures to deal with the energy crisis.
The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, comes to power at the hands of the Conservative Party. This is her profile. https://t.co/ROJzZ2gEYH
— CNN in Spanish (@CNNEE) September 5, 2022
On Tuesday afternoon, after delivering her first address to the nation as president, Truss will begin naming her cabinet ministers.
At Monday’s event in London, some of the new roles that Truss’s close allies will assume tomorrow began to be intuited. Kwasi Kwarteng, who is emerging as finance minister and his right-hand man in government, dramatized the key role he hopes to play from now on by standing in the center of the conference room where the primary result was announced.
Beneath the lectern where Truss would deliver her winning speech minutes later, Kwarteng greeted and welcomed many of her colleagues who lined the front rows, including Education Minister James Cleverly, the odds-on favorite for Foreign Affairs. , and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Secretary of State for Brexit, who aspires to receive a ministerial portfolio.
elections on the horizon
Truss inherits the vast absolute majority that Johnson achieved in the 2019 elections, but also a precarious political situation for the Conservatives, who have sunk in the polls as a result of the scandals surrounding the hitherto head of government and the rise in the prices.
The new “tory” leader today set herself the goal of “fulfilling” her promises within two years and turning around the polls that predict that the Labor Party would win an election with a wide margin: “We will achieve a great victory for the Conservative Party in 2024,” he declared.
However, Truss has so far failed to arouse great enthusiasm among its ranks. His victory in the primaries is the narrowest since 1998 – far from the 66.4% support that Johnson achieved when he was appointed leader – and a survey among party affiliates has revealed that a large majority would prefer that it be the current head of government who would remain in power.
As Prime Minister, I will unleash Britain’s potential by going for growth and removing the obstacles holding our country back.
A growing economy is key to delivering for the British people and unlocking opportunity.
My piece in @Telegraph ?https://t.co/agfTaq78R5 pic.twitter.com/3AUkw6aqZ5
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) September 4, 2022
Although Johnson was forced to resign in July, haunted by controversy and with little support within his formation, in the act of this Monday the calls to the unit were repeated and there were applause and some cheers for him, who was not present.
“I want to thank the outgoing leader, my friend Boris Johnson. You made Brexit happen, you crushed (former Labor leader) Jeremy Corbyn, you deployed the (coronavirus) vaccine and you stood up against (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” Truss said.
For now, the party closes ranks with its new head: “Liz Truss will be a brilliant prime minister,” he assured EFE Rees-Mogg, one of the leaders of the Eurosceptic wing of the formation.
Clash with the European Union
From Foreign Affairs, Truss has promoted the law that will allow the United Kingdom to breach the most controversial parts of the Brexit agreement regarding Northern Ireland when it comes into force in the coming months.
Brussels has not detailed what measures it will take if London unilaterally breaks the agreement in force since January 2021, but experts anticipate the possibility that the dispute will lead to the mutual imposition of tariffs and a trade war.
As minister, Truss has aligned herself with the most Eurosceptic sector of the Conservatives and has applied a hard line with her community partners. Just a week ago, she highlighted her combative profile by questioning whether French President Emmanuel Macron is a “friend or foe” of the United Kingdom.
The clash with the EU threatens to escalate this fall, especially as the deadline approaches for the Northern Irish unionists, contrary to the protocol agreed with the EU, to agree to re-launch the power-sharing Executive, at the end of October.
