Liz Truss wins Tory leadership race to become UK Prime Minister

Liz Truss has been declared the winner of the Tory leadership race after beating Rishi Sunak in a Conservative party members’ poll.

The British foreign secretary will now become the UK's new Prime Minister and is likely to start naming her new cabinet over the next 24 hours. The 47-year-old MP was favoured to win the contest from the point at which it became a matter for the party’s membership to decide.

Truss has promised to announce a plan for those struggling to pay energy bills and tax cuts within the first week of being in the job, but time will tell whether the Prime Minister's word results in action.

She defeated rival Rishi Sunak with 81,326 votes to 60,399 and will take over as prime minister on Tuesday with the immediate challenge of easing the cost-of-living crisis for households across the country faced with soaring energy bills.

Speaking before the result was announced, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney described Ms Truss as a “talented and earnest politician” but expressed worry in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol. Coveney implied that a softening of Truss' past position on the matter might allow for an improvement in relations between the UK and EU.

Truss used her victory speech to pledge to "deliver on the energy crisis" by dealing with bills as well as supplies. A freeze on energy bills may be one of a number of options being worked up in Whitehall to help struggling households to cope with the soaring cost of gas and electricity.

"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," she said.

In response, Labour leader Keir Starmer said: "There can be no justification for not freezing energy prices. There's a political consensus that needs to happen. She needs to ask the question how she's going to pay for that. Labour made it clear, it needs to be a windfall tax on oil and gas companies."

An announcement on what Truss' team will decide in relation to an energy bills package is pencilled in for this Thursday. Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn also referred to the massive wealth gap and cost-of-living crisis in the UK as a core goal for Truss to tackle as PM.

"The first act of Liz Truss’ premiership should be taking immediate action to tackle the cost of living crisis that is pushing millions into poverty — this must be a wealth tax and bringing energy companies, water, mail and rail into public ownership."

The first act of Liz Truss’ premiership should be taking immediate action to tackle the cost of living crisis that is pushing millions into poverty — this must be a wealth tax and bringing energy companies, water, mail and rail into public ownership.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) September 5, 2022

Nadhim Zahawi, the current chancellor, is understood to have been involved in conversations with industry leaders about the plan on a recent trip to the US.

Writing an article in Monday’s Financial Times, Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, who is Truss’s choice for chancellor, said a new government would need to take “decisive action” on the economy and bills.

Kwarteng, who shares Truss’s beliefs about the need for a lower-tax, low-regulation economy, stated in the article that helping people as well as her promises of immediate tax reductions would lead to government borrowing increasing for a time, but promised a “fiscally responsible” approach.

Writing in the FT, Kwarteng said the UK economy was suffering the impact of the invasion of Ukraine and of the Covid pandemic. The society have been suffering under Tory rule for 12 years, with poverty at a shocking high across the land - an issue that was present long before Covid or Ukraine.

He said: “Families and businesses are feeling the impact across the United Kingdom and the world. In response, we have to be bold. That is what Liz Truss will be if elected as leader of the Conservative party and prime minister of the UK. We know households are worried, and decisive action is needed to get families and businesses through this winter and the next. They need certainty.”

Kwarteng said the scale of the crisis meant “there will need to be some fiscal loosening to help people through the winter. That is absolutely the right thing to do in these exceptionally difficult times. The UK’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product is lower than any other G7 country except Germany, so we do not need excessive fiscal tightening. But I want to provide reassurance that this will be done in a fiscally responsible way. Liz is committed to a lean state and, as the immediate shock subsides, we will work to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio over time.”

In a BBC interview on Sunday, Truss said she was not focused on policies to help reduce income inequality, preferring instead to try to grow the economy overall. The Tories repeatedly attempt to aid the economy rather than UK society as a whole, and it doesn't seem as though the new Prime Minister is looking at changing that flaw.

On Laura Kuenssberg's first television show, comedian Joe Lycett went viral after essentially beating the UK's Conservative politicians and media pundits at their own game.

Big fan of @joelycett refusing to take an unserious person seriously pic.twitter.com/KETihwgRbV

— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) September 4, 2022