Over the past six weeks, members of Britain’s Conservative Party have struggled to convince their party that they have what it takes to lead the country.
The meeting was between Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Minister Liz Truss on Monday.
according to BBC Liz Truss was informed at 12:27 local time that she had been elected the new Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Truss won with 81,326 votes against 60,399 for Rishi Sunak.
The announcement was made ten minutes later and Liz Truss gave her first speech. In the speech, she thanked her colleagues, relatives and even Boris Johnson for his work.
– You fixed Brexit, crushed Jeremy Corbyn, delivered the vaccine and stood up to Vladimir Putin. You are admired from Kiev to Carlisle, Liz Truss said in her speech.
She also promised to tackle Britain’s energy crisis and support healthcare and said she would rule the country based on the values of the Conservative Party.
Truss became Britain’s third female prime minister.
These are the candidates
Rishi Sunak, 42, of Indian descent, was a clear favorite when Conservative MPs voted for the two candidates now voted on by party members, but has since faced headwinds. His resignation as finance minister on 5 July, in protest of a series of scandals surrounding Johnson, is seen in part as a betrayal as it became a major factor in the prime minister’s downfall.
Even before the announcement, it was 47-year-old Liz Truss who British media had predicted would succeed Johnson.
Sebastian Payne, Whitehall editor for the Financial Times, said Monday BBC that the expected result had been visible for “about a month” and that “not much happened in this competition all August”.
– People from both camps expect results to show around 60 percent for Liz Truss, says Sebastian Payne.
Ideologically, the two different candidates are different. Among other things, Liz Truss wants to see liberalization and tax cuts, while Rishi Sunak believes the country’s economy should be tackled first.
Among other things, Liz Truss has promised to implement the biggest economic reform in 30 years, which consists largely of tax cuts in several places. She also wants to continue Johnson’s egalitarian policy, but she wants to base it on lower taxes and lower regulatory districts.
Liz Truss, 47, Secretary of State:
He is popular among the country’s conservative voters. She modeled her image on former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
As foreign secretary, she has been at the center of Britain’s support for Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia.
She was born in Oxford to a mathematics professor and a nurse. She is married to Hugh O’Leary and has two teenage daughters.
Rishi Sunak, 42, former Finance Minister:
Member of Parliament since 2015 and has made a rapid career within the party. In 2020, he was appointed Minister of Finance in Boris Johnson’s government.
It was Sunak who, along with former health minister Sajid Javid, launched the wave of defections from Johnson’s government that would later lead to his downfall.
He was born in Southampton, in the south of England. His family is from India and came to England in the 1960s.
Sunak is one of Britain’s richest people alongside his wife, Akshata Murty, who is the daughter of an Indian billionaire. The couple has two daughters.
Sources: AP, BBC
Also read: Britain expected to get “Liz as leader”
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