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Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born on the 26th of July in 1975. She was elected the Conservative Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk in 2010. Before being appointed Prime Minister, she was previously the secretary of state for the foreign, commonwealth, and development affairs, focusing on strategy directorate, national security, and intelligence. Liz Truss is a philosophy, politics, and economics graduate from Merton College in Oxford. She is also a qualified management accountant. Apart from a career in politics, she has served as the economics director in the energy and telecommunications industry. Although Liz Truss’s political journey has taken her away from being a liberal democrat, she has shifted from being a remainder to a Brexit enthusiast winning Conservative the hearts of party members and making her the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
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Truss’s Political Way and Views
Having risen through the ranks of the Conservative party, Liz Truss has taken up her role as the United Kingdom Prime Minister. During her tenure as the foreign secretary, Truss appeared to recreate Margaret Thatcher’s public appearances leading to an intriguing debate about whether she matched Thatcher’s character. Brown (2020) argues that Truss is hardly in the same league as Margaret Thatcher. Brown (2020) states that she is a political chameleon who keeps flip-flopping on major policies, unlike Thatcher, who was regarded then and now as a conviction politician. This assertion was confirmed when Truss campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union during the 2016 referendum, only to change sides later and support Brexit. She later stated that massive economic freedoms would be experienced under Brexit. According to Oxford Anaytica (2020), the commitment to Brexit became a core pillar of her campaign platform, making her popular among Conservative party members. In addition, she has resurrected the idea of conservatism and rejected illiberalism deemed to lower expectations and hold many people back.
Liz Truss’s Program
Immigration
During her campaigns, she signaled that she would adopt a tough approach to immigration (Truss, 2020). She promised to double the policy of deporting asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to Rwanda. On various occasions, she stated that she would be prepared to walk away from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it helped the government control immigration and limit the illegal migrants crossing to the United Kingdom. The appointment of the former Attorney General Ms. Braverman, the originator of taking Britain out of ECHR, as the Home Secretary indicates her stand on immigration. In the Journal “Descending the circles of Brexit,” Kenny (2022) argues that her tough stance over the Northern Ireland protocol is likely to continue and has hinted at triggering article 16 on the post-Brexit deal.
Economic Program
Her economic program includes a plan to cut taxes, reboot the economy, and help reduce energy bills. She has promised to reduce the corporation taxes and slash the VAT by 5 % to ensure a reduced cost of living. To achieve this economic policy, Liz Truss has promised to delay repayment of Covid-related bills since the fiscal headroom will purely finance her economic policy. This plan has been criticized by those who argue that the tax cut-based response to energy costs would benefit high-income earners (Galvin & Sunikka, 2018). Liz Truss is considered an economic liberator over her support for free trade. During her time in the parliament, she founded the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs, proposing a pro-free market collection that would provide a more entrepreneurial economy. It is reported that Truss is already finalizing a 40-billion-dollar support package to lower energy costs.
Health Care and Energy
With the health care service crisis, her plan for health care and social care includes a commitment to strengthen the National Health Service (NHS). There is a promise to reverse national insurance by providing cash to enable clearance of the Covid-related backlog of NHS procedures to provide better social care for the citizens. She has vowed to protect the bee population by signing the conservative environment pledge. Truss plans to remove the environmental rule that requires developers to provide details of the impact in terms of environmental pollution. Liz Truss is committed to supporting green enterprises and has proposed a restriction on solar panels used on commercial roofs instead of their use in the fields.
Conclusion
Liz Truss is a remainder who became a darling of the Brexit conservatives, won many’s hearts with her promise to restore the conservative values. Her top plans as Prime Minister includes a plan to fight immigration by doubling the policy of deporting asylum seekers and illegal immigrants and reducing the rising cost of living by reducing the corporation taxes and the VAT by 5 %. But, having led the foreign affairs docket under Boris Johnson, we do not expect a change of policy on Ukraine. On the contrary, we expect her to continue Britain’s support for Ukraine regarding military aid.
- Brown, J. (2020). ‘Rolling Back the Frontiers of the State, Only to See Them Re-imposed in Docklands?’: Margaret Thatcher, Michael Heseltine and the Contested Parenthood of Canary Wharf. Thatcherism in the 21st Century, 77-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41792-5_5
- Galvin, R., & Sunikka-Blank, M. (2018). Economic Inequality and Household Energy Consumption in High-income Countries: A Challenge for Social Science Based Energy Research. Ecological Economics, Elsevier, 153(C), 78-88. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.003
- Kenny, M. (2022). Descending the circles of “Brexit”: toxicity of future EU-UK relations and the road to EU re-accession? Columbia Journal of European Law, 28 (1), 36-100.
- Oxford Analytica. (2022). UK opposition party adopts cautious Brexit plan. Expert Briefings. https://doi.org/10.1108/OXAN-DB271934
- Truss, L. (2020 December 17). ‘Fight For Fairness’ speech to set out government’s new approach to equality. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fight-for-fairness-speech-to-set-out-governments-new-approach-to-equality