Liz Truss has won Conservative Party’s leadership and will replace Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister

Liz Truss, foreign secretary of the United Kingdom (UK), has won the ruling Conservative Party’s leadership contest and will replace Boris Johnson as the country’s new prime minister.

In the runoff, Truss beat her rival, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak by winning approximately 57.4 percent of the Conservative Party members’ vote, Graham Brady, chair of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee, announced here on Monday.

Voting by the 200,000-odd Conservative Party members began in early August, a month after Johnson was forced to step down following an avalanche of ministerial resignations over his scandal-plagued leadership.

The formal handover will take place on Tuesday after Truss and Johnson meet Queen Elizabeth II, who is staying at her Balmoral estate in Scotland. Both are expected to deliver a speech outside 10 Downing Street.

Truss, 47, is to become the UK’s third female prime minister after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. She faces the immediate tasks of tackling the worsening cost-of-living crisis and handling a Brexit arrangement about Northern Ireland to avoid antagonizing the European Union.

“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply,” she said in her victory speech after the result was announced.

Reacting to Truss’s win, leader of the main opposition Labour Party Keir Starmer tweeted: “I’d like to congratulate our next Prime Minister Liz Truss as she prepares for office. But after 12 years of the Tories all we have to show for it is low wages, high prices, and a Tory cost of living crisis.”

“Only Labour can deliver the fresh start our country needs,” Starmer added.