Who Is Liz Truss, Great Britain's New Prime Minister?

Truss will replace Boris Johnson, who was compelled to step down as Conservative leader and prime minister in July. A mass resignation of around 60 ministers and other political appointees, including Sajid Javid, the health secretary, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, came in protest to Johnson's mishandling of a scandal involving Chris Pincher, the government's former deputy chief whip.

Pincher resigned from that role after being accused of sexually assaulting two men at a private members club. Pincher said he had "drunk far too much" and embarrassed himself, but denied the accusations and remains an independent MP. Further historic allegations of sexual misconduct emerged, raising questions about what Johnson knew, and when.

Downing Street initially denied that Johnson had been aware of these allegations when appointing Pincher as deputy chief whip. This denial was later shown to be false. Johnson also faced criticism for not immediately suspending Pincher from the party, only doing so after coming under intense pressure from within his own ranks.

But Johnson's hold on power was tenuous even before the Pincher affair. A string of scandals demonstrated his lax approach to standards in public life. A number of Conservatives had called on him to resign over partygate — revelations about boozy gatherings in Downing Street in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions, which ultimately led to police fines for Johnson and his wife.

Johnson's own conduct had became both distracting and cumulatively indefensible. No less than 41 percent of Conservative MPs voted against him in a no-confidence vote at the beginning of June.

Johnson's perceived lack of direction was a second source of discontent. He could claim to have "got Brexit done," but what was his government going to do next? There was much talk of "leveling up" but little of practical substance. The problems were compounded by the looming cost-of-living crisis and the apparent chaos of his Downing Street operation.

Lastly, Johnson had come to be seen as an electoral liability. The Conservatives had been behind Labour in the opinion polls since the end of 2019, and more recently had lost a string of byelections to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Conservative MPs, especially in marginal seats, were worried.

The Pincher affair proved fatal for Johnson because it tapped directly into these sources of discontent. Johnson's supporters claimed he was stabbed in the back by his own party — but after repeated stumbles, he had simply tripped onto his own sword.

The choice of Johnson's successor was always going to be a matter exclusively for the governing Conservative party. The U.K. is a parliamentary system in which the government of the day is formed by whoever can command the confidence of the House of Commons. In practice, this usually means the leader of whichever party won a majority of seats at the last general election.

Whenever a prime minister steps down midway through a parliament, there is no constitutional need to hold a new general election. Instead, the incumbent governing party chooses a new leader and thus the new prime minister.

"Takeover" prime ministers who assume office in this way are not unusual. Since 1945, eight premierships began with victory in a general election, while nine started midway through a parliament.

Political parties have their own rules about how to select a new leader. Before 1965, new Conservative leaders emerged from consultations with senior party figures. From then until 1998, new leaders were chosen exclusively by Conservative MPs. Thereafter, they have been elected via a two-stage process in which MPs select two candidates, and then party members — for the Conservatives, around 180,000 dues-paying members — make the final choice.

Eight candidates participated in the first stage of the contest to replace Johnson. After five rounds of voting among Conservative MPs, Sunak, the former chancellor, came top with 137 votes (38.3 percent), Truss, then foreign secretary, came second with 113 votes (31.6 percent), and Penny Mordaunt, minister of state for trade policy, was eliminated from the running with 105 votes (29.3 percent)

There then followed a ballot of party members, with Sunak and Truss spending much of July and the whole of August appealing for support. In the end, Truss beat Sunak by 57 percent to 43 percent.

Truss's immediate task will be to form a government. Who she includes in her cabinet will set the tone for her relations with her party. Truss won the leadership because she was the Conservative members' choice — not her MPs' preferred candidate. Any honeymoon period could be brief, especially if the Conservatives continue to languish behind Labour in the polls.

Above all, Truss will need to manage her party's expectations about the next general election. Every takeover prime minister is greeted by calls for an immediate election on the constitutionally spurious grounds that they haven't been elected.

At the same time, takeover prime ministers want their own mandate from voters. It enhances their authority, and it enables them to start with a fresh set of manifesto commitments.

Truss has the power to call a general election at will. If the Conservatives enjoy a sustained bounce in the polls, Truss will need to calculate whether it's better to go to the country sooner, in the knowledge that the economic situation might deteriorate, or to wait until the last minute, in the hope that things might improve.

If there is no such boost, those calculations will be moot, and the 2019 parliament is likely to run a full term. Voters will then have their chance to pass verdict on Britain's new prime minister no later than January 2025.

Nicholas Allen is a reader in politics at Royal Holloway University of London.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. You can find the original article here.