One of the two remaining candidates to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and the prime minister is Britain’s foreign secretary Liz Truss.
With the winner to be announced on September 5, about 180,000 party members will be asked to select between Truss and former Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak.
Liz Truss would become the third female prime minister in British history if she triumphs. She has carved her persona in honour of the first, Margaret Thatcher.
In Eastern Europe, Truss stood in a British Army tank, invoking images of Thatcher during the Cold War. This week’s televised leadership discussion included Britain’s top ambassador wearing a shirt with a pussy-bow that strikingly resembled one the late prime minister wore.
As foreign secretary, Truss has played a key role in promoting Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of its neighbour as well as Britain’s backing for Ukraine.
She has also played a significant role in the dispute between the UK and the EU on trade agreements after Brexit.
However, her detractors call her a dogmatist and a halting public speaker and point out that she has not always been a staunch supporter of the Tories.
Mixed opinions have been made of her performance as foreign secretary. Many commend her robust response to the invasion of Ukraine, and she succeeded where her predecessors had failed in securing the release of two British people held in Iran.
However, those in charge of the EU hope she will soften the U.K.’s stance toward the bloc.
Truss supported the losing “stay” side in Britain’s 2016 vote on whether to leave the European Union. She did, however, hold the positions of commerce secretary and later foreign secretary in Johnson’s vehemently pro-Brexit administration, and she was able to win over the Conservative Party’s most ardent Brexiteers.
Biography of Liz Truss
Liz Truss was born in Oxford in 1975. She is the daughter of a math professor and a nurse. When Truss was a young child, her parents took her to anti-nuclear and anti-Thatcher protests.
At Oxford University, where she studied philosophy, politics, and economics, Truss briefly belonged to the centrist Liberal Democrats and advocated for the abolition of the monarchy. She had previously attended a public high school in Leeds, northern England.
She worked as an economist for the multinational energy company Shell, the cable and wireless company, and a right-wing think tank while getting involved in Conservative politics and endorsing Thatcherite free-market principles.
Before being chosen to represent the constituency of Southwest Norfolk in eastern England in 2010, she had two unsuccessful attempts to run for the House of Commons.
Liz Truss has two daughters with husband Hugh O’Leary.