Liz Truss to Be New UK Prime Minister

Britain’s Conservative Party announced Monday that Liz Truss, currently the country’s foreign secretary, has been elected as the party’s new leader and thus the U.K.’s new prime minister.

Truss, 47, beat former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak after a leadership contest in which only about 170,000 dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote. Truss received 81,326 votes, compared with Sunak’s 60,399.

She faces immediate pressure to deliver on her promises to tackle a cost-of-living crisis walloping the U.K. and an economy heading into a potentially lengthy recession.

Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to formally appoint Truss as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland, where the monarch is spending her summer, rather than Buckingham Palace in London.

The two-month leadership contest left Britain with a power vacuum at a time of growing discontent across the country amid spiraling energy and food costs. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made no major policy decisions since he announced he was stepping down on July 7, and officials insisted that measures to address the energy cost crisis would be deferred until his successor is in place. (AP)