Liz Truss elected new UK prime minister
LONDON (AA) – British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday was elected by Conservative Party members to lead her party and become the nation’s next prime minister.
Truss, 46, got 81,326 votes to 60,399 votes for former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, 42.
Turnout was 82.6%. Truss did not get the landslide many commentators were expecting. Truss took 57.4% of the vote, compared to 42.6% for Sunak.
Truss is Britain’s third female prime minister, with all three hailing from Britain’s center-right Conservative Party.
She will now meet with the queen, who will officially appoint Truss prime minister and ask her to form a government.
In her victory speech, Truss thanked her supporters as well as her rival Sunak, saying the campaign showed the “breadth and depth of talent in the Conservative Party.”
She then paid tribute to the outgoing premier, “my friend Boris Johnson,” who was pressured out of the leadership amid a series of scandals.
“Boris, you got Brexit done. You crushed (former Labour Party leader) Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the (COVID-19) vaccine. And you stood up to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin. You were admired from Kyiv to Carlisle,” she said.
To-do list
She then turned her attention to her party, saying: “Friends and colleagues, thank you for putting your faith in me to lead our great Conservative Party, the greatest political party on Earth.
“During this leadership campaign, I campaigned as a Conservative and I will govern as a conservative,” Truss said, before listing her priorities.
“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy,” she said.
“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.”
She continued: “But we all will deliver for our country. And I will make sure that we use all the fantastic talents of the Conservative party, our brilliant members of parliament and peers, our fantastic counselors … all of our councilors and activists and members right across our country. Because, my friends, I know that we will deliver, we will deliver and we will deliver. And we will deliver a great victory for the Conservative Party in 2024.”
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