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The UK’s former foreign secretary Liz Truss has been elected the new Conservative Party leader, and the country’s Prime Minister, it was announced on Monday.
Truss, who will be the UK’s third female prime minister, emerged victorious when her election by Tory party members was announced this afternoon following a bitter seven-week leadership battle.
She now faces tackling a cost-of-living crisis in a country mired in rising inflation due to spiralling gas prices.
Truss defeated Sunak by more than 20,000 votes of a Conservative Party electorate of 172,437. She received 81,326 votes to Sunak’s 60,399. The turnout for the vote was 82.6%.
Speaking after her victory, which was announced by chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, she said of her predecessor Boris Johnson: “Boris, you got Brexit done, you crushed [former Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the vaccine and you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You are admired from Kiev to Carlisle.”
She told party members and press gathered at London’s QE II Centre: “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. And I will deliver on the National Health Service.”
(Reporting by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Seban Scaria)
