Her role model is Margaret Thatcher – she remained loyal to Boris Johnson until the end. After his fall, Liz Truss is fighting to take the reins of the Conservatives herself – with right-wing support.
THE Liz Truss proved to be the survivor of conservative governments over the last 12 years. Its course was steadily upward – including from the Ministry of Commerce, to the Ministry of Justice and finally to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And while dozens of her colleagues have fallen into the trap of intrigue and infighting, Truss has managed to emerge unscathed even from the recent wave of resignations that followed the fall of Theresa May.
Liz Truss has always been seen as loyal and hard-working, but without an extensive assessment of her achievements.
With a program… where the wind blows
Liz Truss didn’t seem destined to join the Conservatives from the cradle: her father was a maths teacher, her mother a nurse and the family’s political leanings were basically left-wing. Young Liz even went to anti-nuclear demonstrations. Of course, the British politician has come to terms with her past a long time ago.
The same goes for her start in politics, which she first tried as a student in the Liberal Party. Of course, this has long been classified as a “youthful sin”. With her change of course from pro-European before the Brexit referendum in 2016 to one of the strongest supporters of Britain’s exit from the EU, she also appears to be quite relaxed. In recent years, Tras has been steadily moving further and further to the right.
Inspired by Reagan and Thatcher
She sees herself as the successor to Margaret Thatcher, who in the 1980s put the British economy on a growth trajectory through a rapid privatization program. One of the Trust’s aims is now to fight inflation with tax cuts – despite economists at the Bank of England criticizing the move.
Truss will present the budget when she takes office, she says succinctly. It also wants to grant dozens of new oil and gas production licenses in the North Sea. Environmental concerns play no role for her. In foreign policy, on the other hand, it is clear that the candidate immediately wants to start a battle with Europe and to remove the Northern Ireland Protocol from the Brexit Treaty as soon as possible.
Adam Harrison, from the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, believes that Truss is treating Brexit with “the fervor of a convert”, while her whole worldview is “shaped by (former US president) Reagan and the alliance of the Great Britain with the USA against Russia and China, without the help of the ‘cowardly’ Europeans. She likes to pepper her commentary on the international situation with references to the Cold War and freedom.”
All this may sound alarming, but Liz Truss is not, at least for now, trying to convince the majority of Britons of her plans, but only the roughly 160,000 members of the Conservative party – a figure that represents around 1.5% of the British population. The British election will be held in two years and already many doubt that Liz Truss can last that long.
It is also a fact that the majority of conservative MPs would prefer her opponent, Finance Minister Rishi Sunak. Whether and for how long Tras will last remains an open question. They have already shown with Theresa May and recently with Boris Johnson how they deal with failed prime ministers. It also remains to be seen whether Liz Truss will, on her own, discard her conservative ideology as quickly as she has on other occasions in the past. Either way, the clash between harsh reality and her beliefs will be an interesting spectacle.
DW – Barbara Wezel
Edited by: Chrysa Vachtsevanu
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