Liz Truss favorite to succeed Boris Johnson

Liz Truss is emerging as the winner of the conservative primaries which have been held throughout the month of August in the UK. The polls closed this Friday at five in the afternoon. They opened last August 4 and 160,000 members of the Conservative Party have been able to vote digitally or by mail. The primaries have been divided into two phases since Boris Johnson was forced to resign as british prime minister last July 7. Eleven candidates were presented to succeed him. The first phase consisted of a series of rounds to select two candidates. They voted 357 Conservative MPs.

Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister, the man who brought down Johnson, won every round. Liz Truss, the current foreign secretary, loyal to Johnson, qualified in extremis in the last round behind Sunak. Both competed in the second phase in which the party’s bases voted and in which Truss was the favorite. Truss has been featured as the new thatcher promising a tax cut and the reversal of some of the taxes announced by Sunak during the two years he was Johnson’s finance chief, such as the social security and corporate.

a dozen discussions

The campaign has consisted of 12 debates throughout the country, the last, massive, was held on Wednesday at London’s Wembley Arena, where militants could put the two contenders to the test. The cost of living crisis and the runaway inflation Two-digit has always been at the center of debates. The end of the campaign coincided with the announcement of the rise in energy bills of 80% as of October, which is estimated to affect 25% of citizens, who will have problems making ends meet.

Truss has promised lower taxes and Sunak will continue with the tax increase that he began as minister until inflation begins to drop. Truss has also promised a package billions in aid to people who cannot pay their gas and electricity bills and who do not make ends meet, but without specifying how much this bonus would be. Sunak, for its part, has offered to lower VAT on energy bills for at least a year. Sunak has accused Truss of not be realistic with its promises, since it is not possible to offer a significant reduction in taxes and at the same time promise a package of social assistance that is estimated to reach 50,000 million euros.

ideological struggle

In any case, these have been tricks of the two candidates. Truss representing the right wing of the party and traditional values ​​and Sunak, the postulated more than center. The count has already begun, but the clear favorite is Truss, who leads her rival by 32 points in the polls. Such is his confidence that he has already begun to outline his cabinet. The heavyweights of the party have thrown their support behind Truss. The winner will be announced this Monday at noon. Truss, if she wins, she will become leader of the party and on Tuesday she will be appointed by the queen as prime minister in the balmoral castlein Scotland, due to the mobility problems suffered by Elizabeth II.

Although Truss, 47, presents herself as a new leader, as the person who has to solve the problems that the country has, in reality she is a Johnson’s continuation policy and has been part of his cabinet in the three years that the controversial prime minister has been in office. He will govern the two years Johnson has left. She is a unknown politics for the general public with little experience and is not considered a great speaker. A policy that began in the left and in the greenswho was the president of the Liberal Democratscentrists, during his university days and who has ended up in the right-wing caucus of the conservatives.

Back to the EU

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Truss campaigned for the European Union (EU) in 2016 and ended up being the most ‘Brexitera’ of all. Will follow defying brussels. She drafted the law that aims to remove parts of the agreement signed with the EU and wants to activate article 16 of the Northern Irish Border Protocol. And she supports the policy of sending the asylum seekers to Rwanda.

These are also the last hours as Prime Minister of Boris Johnson, who has decided to march by hitting. He has legally challenged the ongoing investigation by parliament to determine whether lied about parties in downing street during the pandemic. He has said that he is leaving a country with a strong economy, despite the crisis, and has not ruled out trying to become prime minister again.