Who is Liz Truss, the new UK PM?
The third female prime minister in the history of the UK has taken office. Liz Truss was chosen by Conservative Party members at the grassroots level to lead the party and subsequently the country on a platform that positioned her as Boris Johnson’s successor.
The roughly 180,000 Conservative party members who chose the new leader will be happy that the continuity candidate won the election. Likewise, opposition party strategists from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish National Party will be happy that the continuity candidate won. The likelihood that the Conservative Party will lose the upcoming general election has grown as a result of Truss’ election as leader.
This is due to the fact that Truss just provides more of the same. She enters 10 Downing Street at a time when the experiences of the wider electorate and the Conservative party are at odds. The leadership arguments between Truss and her major rival, Rishi Sunak, were centred on the size of tax cuts, eroding the public coffers at a time when they are most needed as Britons struggle with a cost-of-living problem. The older and wealthier Conservative members found this to be music to their ears, while the general electorate saw it as a case of “same world, different planet.”
Truss called the concept of assistance for economically needy Britons “handouts,” further adding insult to injury. Furthermore, throughout the leadership election, she reiterated her beliefs that British workers were “lazy.” Her former Labour supporters in the 45 so-called “Red Wall” seats in northern England who moved to the Johnson-led Conservatives at the 2019 election are not going to take kindly to this.
In such seats, newly elected Conservative MPs worry that their new supporters may decide to support Labour again in the face of this contempt.
Additionally, Truss might face difficulties in the 20 so-called “Blue Wall” seats in southern England because he represents continuity with the Johnson administration. In three recent by-elections in such seats, former Conservative voters moved to the Liberal Democrats, putting pressure on Johnson to leave earlier this year.
Who is Liz Truss, the new UK PM?
In this region of England, Conservative MPs worry that voters who were turned off by Johnson’s politics and manner of running the country won’t warm to Truss’s acceptance of the same strategies: antipathy toward the EU, provoking the French, and conducting a “war on liberalism.”
The support for Scottish independence will be strengthened by Truss’ embrace of everything British north of the border, including her well-known fondness for British cheese and her self-conscious use of Thatcherite iconography. Even if there are just six Conservative MPs in Scotland, having Truss as leader won’t make it any easier to hold onto seats in the upcoming election.
Why was she chosen given these tactical risks? Despite Johnson’s performance in government, a majority of Conservative members, according to a YouGov opinion survey, did not want to see him removed from Number 10. Between Conservative voters at the grassroots and the larger electorate, a gap has opened up. The party will bear the cost if Truss imitates Johnson too closely, as the party appears to want.
In what ways does this benefit Australia?
In her in-tray, Truss will discover a number of urgent yet complicated concerns. The cost-of-living crisis will be the most important of these. As winter approaches and energy price limitations are abolished, this will worsen, leaving many people unable to heat their homes and purchase food. The summer’s industrial unrest will become more severe.
The conflict in Ukraine is the next matter. The Russian government’s global strategy includes the expectation that western nations, including the UK, will lose interest in supporting Ukraine. Under Truss, this will not take place. She is a staunch supporter of Ukraine and is likely to continue the UK’s existing policy of backing it.
In terms of Anglo-Australian ties, Truss is also a candidate for continuity. Despite Dan Tehan’s uncomfortable chair during the free trade talks, Truss, like Johnson, is a big lover of Australia. This type of bilateral relationship will only grow stronger because the free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the UK was written by a British citizen. Being very oriented toward Australia means that the three countries’ strategic partnership, known as AUKUS, will continue to be supported.
Of course, Johnson had an ideological ally in his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison. Truss and Anthony Albanese or Foreign Minister Penny Wong won’t have the same political views.
The ALP is generally in favour of the Australia-UK FTA, albeit there should be some tougher measures for workers’ rights included. What the ALP thinks of AUKUS and if the Australian government will favour British over US submarine designs are less well known (or whatever there might be on offer in the interim).
There are still unanswered questions over whether Truss, like her predecessor, believes more in herself than in Britain. Given her capacity to firmly hold many political positions (she began as a Liberal Democrat and voted to stay in the EU), it’s possible that our incoming leader is more concerned with building their personal resume than the welfare of the country as a whole.
Although Boris Johnson harmed public confidence in politics, Truss might not be qualified to address that specific problem. There are lessons to be learned from what occurred to Theresa May when that temptation arose. Her advisers will be tempted to seek a rapid election, which would give her a fictitious “mandate” that the Westminster system does not require.
Despite all of his flaws, Johnson leaves Truss with a commanding 73-seat majority. But Truss must go cautiously since she represents the opposition’s finest opportunity in many years to unseat the Conservatives.
