UK Prime Minister Election Results: Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak spent the summer rallying support.
New Delhi:
Liz Truss has defeated Rishi Sunak to be the new Prime Minister of Britain. She beat her rival by 81,326 votes to 60,399, after a summer-long internal contest sparked by Boris Johnson’s resignation in July.
Long the front-runner in the race to replace Johnson, Truss has become the Conservatives’ fourth prime minister since a 2015 election. Over that period the country has been buffeted from crisis to crisis, and now faces what is forecast to be a long recession triggered by sky-rocketing inflation which hit 10.1 per cent in July.
Boris Johnson was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal and he will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation. His successor will follow him and be asked to form a government.
Here are the updates on UK PM Election Results:
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I am grateful for your support: Liz Truss, New UK PM
“I am grateful for your support. It is has been a hard-fought contest. The contest shown the depth of talent the party has. Would like to thank Rishi Sunak,” said Liz Truss after being appointed the Prime Minister of UK>
Liz Truss beat her rival, former finance minister Rishi Sunak, by 81,326 votes to 60,399, after a summer-long internal contest sparked by Boris Johnson’s resignation in July.
Liz Truss Defeats Rishi Sunak To Be Next UK PM
Liz Truss Defeats Rishi Sunak To Be Next UK PM
Liz Truss is expected to be named leader of the governing Conservative Party and Britain’s next prime minister on Monday, poised to take power at a time when the country faces a cost of living crisis, industrial unrest and a recession.
After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive party leadership contest that pitted Truss against Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, Monday’s announcement at 1130 GMT will trigger the beginning of a handover from Boris Johnson.
Johnson was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal and he will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation. His successor will follow him and be asked to form a government.
Truss faces a long, costly and difficult to-do list, which opposition lawmakers say is the result of 12 years of poor Conservative government. Several have called for an early election – something Truss has said she will not allow.
Veteran Conservative lawmaker David Davis described the challenges she would take on as prime minister as “probably the second most difficult brief of post-war prime ministers” after Conservative Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
“I actually don’t think any of the candidates, not one of them going through it, really knows quite how big this is going to be,” he said, adding that costs could run into tens of billions of pounds.
Truss has said she will appoint a strong cabinet, dispensing with what one source close to her called a “presidential-style” of governing, and she will have to work hard to win over some lawmakers in her party who had backed Sunak in the race.
The Institute for Government said Truss would have a weaker starting point than any of her predecessors, because she was not the most popular choice among her party’s lawmakers.
First, she will turn to the urgent issue of surging energy prices. Average annual household utility bills are set to jump by 80% in October to 3,549 pounds, before an expected rise to 6,000 pounds in 2023, decimating personal finances.
Liz Truss will become Britain’s third female prime minister if she wins the Conservative leadership election, while rival Rishi Sunak hopes to be the first non-white incumbent in Downing Street.
The campaign, sparked by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation in July, has highlighted the pair’s differing approaches to tackling the country’s spiralling cost of living crisis.
Sunak, whose resignation as finance minister over a series of government scandals helped to spark the leadership contest, is considered a better public speaker.
But he has come under fire for clinging to fiscal orthodoxy to tackle runaway inflation and has been hamstrung by his image as a wealthy technocrat.
Foreign Secretary Truss has in contrast emerged as the favourite in the vote of grassroots Tory members, the result of which will be announced Monday.
British foreign minister Liz Truss said on Sunday she would set out immediate action to tackle rising energy bills and increase energy supplies if she is, as expected, appointed Prime Minister this week.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper on the eve of the announcement on who will replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Truss repeated her pledge to be bold in tackling Britain’s economy, which is struggling with double-digit inflation and is facing recession.
Saying she understood “how challenging the cost of living crisis is for everyone”, Truss wrote that she would take “decisive action to ensure families and businesses can get through this winter and the next”.
Whoever emerges as winner faces “the worst in-tray for a new prime minister since Thatcher”, The Sunday Times wrote.
The UK is gripped by its worst cost-of-living crisis in generations, with inflation soaring into double digits and energy prices shooting up on the back of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Millions say that with bills set to rise by 80 percent from October — and even higher from January — they face a painful choice between eating and heating this winter, according to surveys.
Britain’s prime minister in waiting Liz Truss models herself on Margaret Thatcher, judging by her photo ops echoing famous images of the country’s first female premier.
If Truss becomes leader of the ruling party on Monday as is widely expected, she’ll need all the grit and guile of the Iron Lady as she walks into a scene straight out of the 1980s: a looming recession, industrial unrest and urban decay.
In a sign of the times, an area straddling the River Mersey near Liverpool that was once an industrial heartland now has a less illustrious claim to fame: families there are seeking protection from creditors at the fastest rate in the country.
UK PM race: Final countdown begins for Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss
The final countdown in the over six-week-long gruelling campaign for the governing Conservative Party to elect a new leader who will succeed ousted Boris Johnson as British Prime Minister is now underway, with the winner between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to be declared today.
British foreign minister Liz Truss said on Sunday she would set out immediate action in her first week in power to tackle rising energy bills and increase energy supplies if she is, as expected, appointed prime minister.
The governing Conservative Party is widely expected to name Truss its new leader, and Britain’s new prime minister, on Monday at a time when the country faces what is forecast to be a long recession, double-digit inflation and industrial unrest.
It is a long and costly to-do list for the incoming leader who will replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Truss said she would be bold in tackling the flagging economy, repeating her pledge to spur growth to fix its long list of ills.
Rishi Sunak said on Sunday that if he loses the Conservative Party leadership race, his job would be to support the next government, giving the first hint at what’s in store beyond Monday’s election result to replace Boris Johnson as British Prime Minister.
In his final interview with the BBC before the results are declared, the British Indian former Chancellor said he plans to stay on as a member of Parliament and continue to work for his constituents in Richmond, Yorkshire, if he is defeated by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in the race.
Russia said on Monday it could not rule out the possibility that dire relations with Britain would get even worse under the country’s next prime minister.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who has for months been the target of withering scorn from Moscow, is expected to beat rival Rishi Sunak and become Britain’s new leader, succeeding Boris Johnson, when the result of a ballot of Conservative party members is announced at 1130 GMT.
“I wouldn’t like to say that things can change for the worse, because it’s hard to imagine anything worse,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked if Moscow expected any shift in relations with Britain.
Liz Truss is expected to be named leader of the governing Conservative Party and Britain’s next Prime Minister on Monday, poised to take power at a time when the country faces a cost of living crisis, industrial unrest and a recession.
After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive party leadership contest that pitted Truss against Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, Monday’s announcement at 1130 GMT will trigger the beginning of a handover from Boris Johnson.