TRUSS. Liz Truss became the new leader of the British Conservative Party on Monday and will therefore be appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. But it is already decried. His portrait.
[Mise à jour le 5 septembre à 15h33] “I will govern as a conservative.” Mounted on the platform a few moments after the announcement of his victory in the election for the presidency of the conservative patri, chair thus granting him the post of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss reiterated its roadmap to try to govern a country in the midst of a social crisis, with households in the grip of immense financial difficulties. The one who will officially succeed Boris Johnson this Tuesday, September 6, 2022 is giving herself two years to straighten the helm of a drifting British ship, using a “bold plan to reduce taxes and grow our economy. ” Without revealing the terms, she also affirmed that she “will be[t] at the height of the energy crisis, by taking care of people’s energy bills.” This is the main project for the one who was victorious in her match with Rishi Sunak for the position at 10 Downing Street.
The victory of Liz Truss, current Minister of Foreign Affairs, is not a surprise. The polls have always given her a clear winner against her former colleague in government, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Finance). However, she won less in advance than promised, winning 57% of the votes cast, in a vote that was only open to members of the Conservative Party. What, already, to question its legitimacy with part of the British population. Liz Truss was in fact only elected by 81,326 members of the Conservative Party (out of 142,000 participants), among the 47.5 million voters in the United Kingdom. Between the social crisis and the voting system, it is in an electric context that the forties will become the third woman to lead the British government, after Margareth Thatcher and Theresa May. 51% of Britons would also be in favor of holding early legislative organizations, scheduled for 2024. And the trend is towards political change, with the Labor Party (left) receiving favors from the electorate (39%) against the Conservatives ( 31%).
At 47, Liz Truss is not unanimous. Nationwide, of course, because only members of the Conservative Party were able to vote (read above). Even within her party, although she won hands down against Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss is challenged. The reason for this ambivalence among conservatives? Her unwavering loyalty to Boris Johnson, which she did not let go of during the summer when the Prime Minister found himself cornered on all sides and forced to resign, dropped by several of his ministers, is hailed internally . On the other hand, his cold appearance, even considered robotic by his detractors despite his efforts to erase it, earned him criticism. Just like its economic program, based on the reduction of taxes and duties, considered incompatible with the economic crisis which the United Kingdom is going through and lacking in clarity.
Because Liz Truss should settle at 10 Downing Street in a particularly electric climate across the Channel. Energy prices are soaring, inflation is rising exponentially, strikes are multiplying… Tension is high in the United Kingdom and those who advocate improving purchasing power and the quality of life by more work and lower taxes is already not credited with voter confidence. Only members of the Conservative Party were able to vote, excluding those of the opposing camp, the Labor Party. Thus, according to a Yougov poll carried out at the end of August among 1,651 Britons, 52% believe that she will make a bad Prime Minister.
What link would Liz Truss have with France if she became Prime Minister? Asked during a meeting about her position vis-à-vis Emmanuel Macron and France on Thursday August 25, the candidate remained very enigmatic. “Macron, friend or foe?” asked the host of the evening. “The jury is still out,” she said, before adding: “If I become Prime Minister, I will judge him on his actions and not on his words.” For his part, Emmanuel Macron replied that “the nation which is the United Kingdom is a friendly, strong and allied nation”, also warning that “if we are not able, between French and British, to say whether we are friend or enemy – the term is not neutral – we are heading for serious problems”.
At Sunday newspaper, researcher at the Jacques-Delors Institute and Brexit specialist, Elvire Fabry, also analyzes that, like Boris Johnson, Liz Truss maintains “the idea that France is trying to punish the British, although there is no has ever had a concrete materialization of this position”. Generally speaking, Europeans are not particularly optimistic about a warming of relations with the UK if elected. According to the researcher, an even more complicated relationship seems to be emerging with the arrival of Liz Truss. The very populist campaign led by it would not suggest a conciliatory attitude, adds Patrick Chevallereau, associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris), still in the columns of the JDD. “Liz Truss led an extremely populist, anti-Brussels campaign, with a latent Francophobia, which suggests an unconciliatory attitude on all the issues that divide us,” he summarizes.
Liz Truss therefore won Rishi Sunak for the post of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and to replace Boris Johnson. Minister and Secretary of State continuously since 2014, the member of the conservative party had qualified for the final duel of her political family which made it possible to designate the future boss of the Matignon of the monarchy. At 47, she had been chosen by the deputies of her camp, just like Rishi Sunak. Finally, the members of the Conservative Party voted in majority in his favour, collecting 81,326 votes, against 60,399 for his adversary.
What is the essence of Liz Truss’ program?
Presented as more conservative than her opponent, Liz Truss defends lower taxes, particularly on companies, promises to cancel the rise in social security prices and to abolish the green levy (an environmental tax on the principle of polluter-pays ). Affirming that she will not question Brexit, she affirms, on the environmental level, to want to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, while building new nuclear power plants, she who is opposed to photovoltaic power plants.
If she appears today as a fervent defender of Brexit, Liz Truss has not always come out in favor of leaving the European Union. At the time of the 2016 referendum, she even held an opposite position… namely that she wanted the United Kingdom to remain in the Union. “I support ‘remain’ because I think it’s in Britain’s economic interest and it means we can focus on vital economic and social reform at home,” she tweeted on 20 February 2016, four months before the referendum, which had seen the “leave” (leave, editor’s note) win by a short head. “I voted to stay because I was concerned about the economy,” she confirmed to the BBC a year later.
Since then, it is an understatement to say that she has made a reversal, decided to support Brexit, justifying the end of July 2022, always with the BBC to have “fully embraced the choice the British people have made.” Before adding: “I was wrong and I am ready to admit that I was wrong. Some of the omens of doom did not occur and instead we have, in fact, opened up new opportunities.”
In an interview at Telegram, she explained in the spring of 2022 that “what I have seen both in my work in commerce and in my role as foreign minister is the new freedom and the impetus that having a independent trade policy and an independent foreign policy allowed us to do so.” And said: “If I could come back in 2016, I would vote to leave.”
Biography of Liz Truss
Her real name Mary Elizabeth Truss was born in 1975, whose parents were a nurse for the mother and a math teacher for the father, both rather on the left according to her words. After wandering around the United Kingdom due to successive moves of her family, she joined the University of Oxford and graduated in philosophy, politics and economics. Invested in the Liberal Democrat cause during her studies, she opposed the monarchy… before switching to the conservative side in 1996 and entering politics. She ran to become a deputy in 2001 and 2005, without success, then was finally elected in 2010. Two years later, she entered the government, as Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Education, then saw herself alternately entrust the leadership of the Ministry of the Environment (2014-2016), Justice (2016-2017), the position of number 2 of the Ministry of Economy (2017-2019), then takes the head of the ministry of International Trade (2019-2021), at the same time in charge of Women and Equality, before being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2021. Despite this meteoric rise, Liz Truss was a figure of… anti-Brexit ( read above), before changing position on the subject. And to take the place of the figure of this historic decision.