London [UK]: The UK is set to announce its new Prime Minister on Monday, after a six-week long head-to-head competition between Indian-origin former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, to elect the new leader of the Conservative Party who will replace the outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
47-year-old Liz Truss aims to become the third female prime minister of the UK while her opponent Rishi Sunak, 42 will make history by becoming the first Indian-origin Prime Minister, if he prevails. All eyes are on the results now, which will be announced by the Conservative party today via mail-in ballot.
However, Truss who is widely expected to take over from Boris Johnson as the next British prime minister seems to have less fan following. According to the latest YouGov survey, the citizens of Britain are split on whether Liz Truss would be a better PM than Boris Johnson but tend to think Truss would be worse than every other PM back to Thatcher.
Nearly 52 per cent said that Truss would make a “poor” or “terrible” prime minister, while 43 per cent said they did not trust her “at all” to deal with the issues of the expensive cost of living. A further 37 per cent of Britons believe she will be much the same as her predecessor.
The voting by Tory members for their choice between Sunak and Truss which started early August closed on Friday evening.
The two contenders have gone through a postal ballot of all the Conservative members, numbering around 160,000 Tory electorate to replace the UK outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson.
The online and postal voting closed on Friday evening, the deadline for Tory members to register their votes. “Voting is now closed. Thank you to all my colleagues, campaign team and, of course, all the members who came out to meet me and lend your support,” wrote Rishi Sunak.
During their hustings, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had explained their long-term visions for Britain. Both contenders went through bouts of 12 nationwide events with the first bout in Leeds, Northern England.
Truss indicated that she will strongly push back against “identity politics of the left” as she has envisioned the legislation for single-sex spaces such as domestic violence shelters whereas Sunak backtracked by putting forward the idea of cutting VAT to revive the country’s economic situation.
Moreover, Truss has promised to introduce a moratorium on the green levy and reverse the National Insurance increase, responding to which Sunak said that direct financial assistance is the best way out to support people with low incomes rather than tax cuts.
On Saturday, Truss promised to address energy bill problems right away if elected.
“If elected, I plan within the first week of my new administration to set out our immediate action on energy bills and energy supply… We need to take difficult decisions to ensure we are not in this position every autumn and winter. Sticking plasters and kicking the can down the road will not do. I am ready to take the tough decisions to rebuild our economy,” Truss said in a Saturday article for a UK-based media outlet, reported Sputnik.
On Brexit, both the Tory leadership candidates vowed to reset the relationship between European Union (EU) and the UK. They said that the next leader will continue to create opportunities to re-establish the ties.
“The EU and UK are “at loggerheads” over the Northern Ireland Protocol but with a new prime minister we have a chance to reset that relationship,” Sunak had said earlier in one of the face-offs with Truss.
