Liz Truss could become Britain's third female prime minister

Liz Truss could become Britain’s third female prime minister

Liz Truss

British foreign secretary Liz Truss is now considered the frontrunner to take over the leadership of the Conservative party, after being named by the Tories as one of their final two contenders.

After five rounds of voting, Truss won the second most votes to set her up to compete with former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and become the successor to the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

Nearly two weeks ago, Johnson resigned as PM after an unprecedented mass resignation of more than 50 members of his government calling on him to leave. The next Conservative party leader will face the difficult job of strengthening the party before the next general election.

If Truss is chosen to be PM by the 160,000 Tory members who will decide in a vote ending on September 5, she would become Britain’s third woman prime minister, following Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. 

The latest poll of Tory members from British market research company, YouGov, suggests Truss is favored to win over Sunak, but opinions could still swing over the course of the campaign.

 

Last year, at age 46, Truss became the UK’s second female foreign secretary and has held a wide variety of posts in Parliament, dealing with high-profile domestic and international issues. She served in the cabinet under David Cameron, Theresa May and Johnson. After Brexit, she delivered trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, as well as rollover deals with numerous other countries. 

As foreign secretary, Truss has been a staunch critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, insisting all Russian forces should be driven from the country. She even went so far as to express support for individuals from the UK who might want to fight in Ukraine, although this was met with much criticism. 

Another noteworthy action she took was securing the release of two British Iranian nationals who had both been arrested and detained in Iran.

Closer to home, Truss tried scrapping parts of a post-Brexit EU-UK deal in an effort to solve the problem of the Northern Ireland Protocol – a move that received fierce criticism from the EU. 

Before she became known as a low-tax Conservative Brexiteer, Truss was at one point a Liberal Democrat who campaigned for “Remain” during the EU referendum for Brexit. She has since switched to favour Brexit and large parts of the Brexit-backing right are in support of her. Truss is also believed to have the unofficial backing of Johnson.  

During the political drama surrounding Johnson’s resignation, Truss didn’t speak out against Johnson until the storm had seemingly settled. Although despite her public loyalty, some analysts think she may have been campaigning for the role of PM for months beforehand. In a visit to Estonia last November, Truss posed in military gear on top of a tank, which some think was an effort to resemble an iconic photo of former Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher and “Iron Lady”, who also once posed atop a military tank.

In comparison to her current PM candidate rival, Sunak, Truss has some notable policy differences.

Where Sunak is running under a promise to increase taxes to curb current inflation, Truss has spoken out in favour of cutting taxes as the solution to the cost of living crisis, and she wants to review the Bank of England’s mandate to set interest rates. Inflation hit a 40-year high hours before the candidacy results were announced and is expected to be the central issue in the next vote. 

Another significant policy stance, considering the UK’s current heatwave, is climate change, where both candidates are committed to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Truss, however, differs from Sunak in that she wants to scrap the “green levy”, a part of British citizens’ energy bill that pays for social and green projects. 

In her speeches and on social media, Truss has tried to convey that if chosen to lead the party, she would “hit the ground running from day one.”

While the race for PM looks to be in Truss’s favour, things are still fairly unpredictable. She is expected to rely on her international experience as foreign secretary to boost her campaign.  

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