Aged 47, Liz Truss will be the third woman to lead the British government, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.
Unsurprisingly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs won against her former finance colleague Rishi Sunak, following a postal vote reserved for members of the Conservative Party, triggered by the resignation in early July of Boris Johnson, cornered by repeated scandals.
She won 81,326 votes (57%) against 60,399 for her rival (43%), according to the results communicated by Graham Brady, responsible for organizing the poll.
“I will present a bold plan to reduce taxes and grow our economy,” promised Liz Truss after the announcement of her victory.
“I will tackle the energy crisis by taking care of people’s energy bills, but also by taking care of the long-term difficulties of energy supply”, she added, promising a “great victory” to his party during the legislative elections scheduled for 2024.
Elected leader of the party by the members who took part in the vote, she will, under the British parliamentary system, come to power because of the majority enjoyed by the “Tories” in the House of Commons.
Remaining faithful to Boris Johnson to the end when resignations within the executive were counted by the dozens, Liz Truss will enter Downing Street in an explosive economic and social context, marked by inflation that exceeds 10% and a rise exorbitant energy bills strangling families, businesses and public services.
In this context, Liz Truss has no respite to convince, two years before the 2024 legislative elections where the Labor opposition, which has a clear lead in the polls, hopes to dislodge the conservatives in power since 2010.
– Social grumbling –
She will also have to deal with the shadow of Boris Johnson, who is already missing by some members of the Conservative Party – more masculine, older and white than the average Briton – and has not ruled out a return to politics.
Boris Johnson will go on Tuesday to hand in his resignation to Elizabeth II in her summer residence at Balmoral in Scotland, a first for the 96-year-old sovereign who has difficulty moving around and will not make the trip to London.
Liz Truss will follow to become the 15th head of government of the monarch’s 70-year reign, before returning to London to deliver her maiden speech at 10 Downing Street to form her government.
In a very right-wing campaign, sometimes to the point of seeming disconnected from the dramatic worsening of the crisis over the summer, Liz Truss, a belated convert to conservatism like Brexit, seduced by promising massive tax cuts and adopting a very harsh tone against the unions.
Yet the favorite of Conservative MPs, Rishi Sunak, a wealthy ex-banker, struggled to seduce the base of the party by advocating an economic realism far from “fairy tales” and was seen as a giving lesson technocrat unable to understand the difficulties of the households.
Sunday, Liz Truss assured the BBC that elected, she would act “from the first week” to help the British with their energy bills, however refusing to specify the concrete nature of the measures she intended to take.
If she is popular with the Tories, 52% of Britons believe she will be a bad or very bad Prime Minister according to a recent YouGov poll. Not sure therefore that these vague promises are enough to calm the social discontent that has shaken the country like never since the Thatcher years (1979-1990) and promises an explosive social return.
