Liz Truss has today (Monday, September 5) been chosen as the new leader of the British Conservative and Unionist Party and is therefore the nation’s new Prime Minister.
She beat her opponent Rishi Sunak by almost 21,000 votes.
"It's an honour to be elected as leader," she said in her acceptance speech.
Truss thanked her family and friends, political colleagues and "all those who helped on this political campaign". She also paid mention to Sunak.
Voting by the Conservative party members closed at 5:00p.m on Friday (September 2).
Who is Liz Truss?
Truss studied philosophy, politics and economics at Merton College, Oxford, after which she had a career outside of politics. She worked in the energy and telecommunications industry for ten years as a commercial manager and economics director, and was previously deputy director at Reform.
Truss entered Parliament in 2010 and was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Education and Childcare in September 2012.
She has since served as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (a role currently held by George Eustice); Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; Chief Secretary to the Treasury; and Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade.
In September last year, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson reshuffled his then cabinet and Truss took over the responsibility of foreign secretary, leading the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, a role which she will now leave. She is also the now-outgoing Minister for Women and Equalities.
In her personal life, Truss is married with two children.
Agricultural and trade experience
Truss has a wealth of experience dealing with agriculture-related issues from her previous roles working in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and in the Department for International Trade, securing post-Brexit free trade agreements (FTAs) and navigating market access barriers.
“At Defra, I stood up for British farmers and promoted exports and as Trade Secretary, I struck dozens of major new trade deals,” she said in her campaign vision.
One major deal she secured with produce trade at the core was the New Zealand FTA. To read how the UK-NZ FTA affects the British agricultural community, click here.
Truss also oversaw the Australia-UK FTA, which she said, at the time of its agreement:
“It [the deal] is a fundamentally liberalising agreement that removes tariffs on all British goods, opens new opportunities for our services providers and tech firms, and makes it easier for our people to travel and work together.
“The agreement paves the way for us to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a £9 trillion free trade area home to some of the biggest consumer markets of the present and future.
“Membership will create unheralded opportunities for our farmers, makers, innovators and investors to do business in the future of engine room of the global economy.”
However, the deal was not met with open arms by all: The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) had called it a “one-sided deal” and that the deal contains “very little to benefit British farmers”.
To read the reactions to the deal from the UK’s farming organisations, click here.
Northern Ireland Protocol
As Foreign Secretary, Truss has been the most recent negotiator in EU-UK Northern Ireland Protocol discussions. In her time doing so she put forward the idea of new legislation to make changes to the protocol. The bill with these changes is currently passing through the House of Lords (second reading stage) for debate.
“This legislation will fix the problems the protocol has created, ensuring that goods can flow freely within the UK, while avoiding a hard border and safeguarding the EU Single Market,” Truss said at the time of the House of Commons’ second reading.
“A negotiated solution has been and remains our preference, but the EU continues to rule out changing the protocol itself – even though it is patently causing serious problems in Northern Ireland – which therefore means we are obliged to act.”
