Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Liz Truss Will be Next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

An uncharismatic, well-to-do, Oxford-educated, female Tory politician who voted against Brexit is set to be installed as the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. No, you haven’t travelled back in time to 2016, and no, we aren’t talking about Theresa May. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: Liz Truss.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom will have a new leader, Mary ‘Liz’ Truss’ (47), when Queen Elizabeth II will officially swear in the Conservative party politician as prime minister at the Monarch’s Balmoral estate in Scotland. Normally this would take place in London, but the Queen’s advanced years will see her stay at home in her summer house in Scotland.

The public is never told of what happens in confidence between Prime Minister and Monarch, but some may wonder whether Truss’s history of calling for the abolition of the monarchy at a Liberal Democrat party conference in 1994 will be brought up between the two.

Judging by her past performance — from campaigning in favour of staying in the EU and high-profile gaffes when in power, to the green agenda and open borders policy proposals she has laid out during the leadership campaign — Britons can expect to see more globalist governance from yet another World Economic Forum-aligned creature of Westminster, who mimes platitudes like ‘Build Back Better’ and ‘Levelling Up” as the culture and country are slowly destroyed.

While her predecessor, Boris Johnson, often attempted to cast himself as a modern version of Sir Winston Churchill, Truss has blatantly tried to pass herself off as the heir apparent to the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, going so far as to wear an identical outfit worn by the former prime minister during a leadership debate this summer and even previously mimicking the ‘Iron Lady’ by posing in a tank in December of last year amid growing tensions with Russia.

However, others have compared Truss to another former female Tory leader, such as Brexit leader Nigel Farage, who branded her early on as “Theresa May 2.0”.

“I think the Conservative Party are making a dreadful mistake. I think it’s Theresa May two-point-zero… ‘Yes, she was a Remainer, but It’ll be OK’: No, it won’t be OK and I don’t think she can connect with the Red Wall,” Mr Farage said of a potential Truss premiership in July.

The similarities between Truss and Theresa May run thick, with both facing criticisms over a perceived inability to connect with the wider public. Some claim both suffer from often awkward and uncharismatic delivery in public. Yet, the central issue that has dogged both politicians has been their shared opposition to the Brexit Referendum in 2016, throwing into question their ability, or desire, to fully deliver on the promises of the UK’s recently found independence from the European Union.

However, unlike May — who merely voiced her support for the Remain cause during the referendum — Truss was a fervent campaigner for the European Union. Indeed, alongside other left-leaning Tory figures, Truss helped launched the Conservative anti-Brexit campaign’s ‘Women for Remain’ group and would go on to tour the UK in the so-called Remain “battle bus“.

Truss would go on to claim to have converted to the Brexit cause — after the public voted in favour of leaving the European Union — yet, even still, she would go on to support Theresa May’s ill-fated ‘Brexit in Name Only’ EU divorce deal every time the measure was put before the House of Commons and loudly opposed moves by Brexiteers to oust May, claiming that the former PM was “the right person to deliver Brexit and has shown herself to be strong and determined.”

Truss would, however, earn some plaudits for her efforts in securing the first post-Brexit trade deal after being elevated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2019 to the cabinet role of trade secretary, signing an agreement with the Commonwealth nation of Australia.

After ascending to the post of foreign secretary, she also garnered praise from Brexit hardliners for crafting legislation to challenge the Northern Ireland Protocol, to deal with the increasing anger among pro-British Unionists in the province after Boris Johnson’s divorce deal left the region to the whims of the European Union, which has imposed trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

For this, she has won the backing of key Brexiteers such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, however, it remains to be seen how Truss will handle the continued issues surrounding Brexit and Northern Ireland once she is handed the reigns of power, with the Independent previously noting that throughout her political career, she has “adopted more political positions than most people have had hot dinners”.

Her tenure as foreign secretary has not been all smooth sailing, however, suffering several high-profile gaffes such as confusing the Baltic and the Black Sea, for which Russia lambasted her for displaying “stupidity and ignorance”. Truss also faced considerable backlash for expressing support for Britons who wished to go and fight for Ukraine, a statement she was forced to swiftly walk back, as it is likely illegal for UK citizens to do so. The foolhardy comments were followed by tragedy, with two Britons who travelled to fight alongside Ukrainian forces being sentenced to death by firing squad after being captured by Russian separatists in Ukraine in June.

During the leadership campaign, Truss has attempted to differentiate herself from the Johnson administration and her leadership rival, fellow Johnson-era veteran Rishi Sunak, by calling for tax cuts to help ease the cost of living crisis, yet to date, she has only confirmed that she would make cuts to National Insurance payments and the green taxes on energy bills. Some, including the Centre on Brexit Policy, have said that such moves will be insufficient to mitigate the looming recession on the horizon.

Reports have emerged that Truss is also considering the “nuclear” option of cutting the Value Added Tax (VAT) by five per cent, which could save the average household £1,300 a year per year, yet she has yet to publicly commit to the idea.

Truss has also tried to differentiate herself from Boris Johnson by committing to drill for more oil in the North Sea and lift the moratorium on fracking to alleviate the ongoing green policy-induced energy crisis. Yet, Johnson’s central climate agenda legacy item, the commitment to radically transforming the British economy to achieve Net-Zero carbon emissions by the year 2050, will likely remain intact under Truss.

“I am determined to build on that track record as leader and Prime Minister by doubling down in our drive to hit net zero emissions by 2050 in a Conservative way which helps households and businesses,” Truss said in August, adding: “I also recommitted to our 2030 goal for halting nature decline, pledged to continue reforming farm payments, help people insulate their homes, champion renewables and new clean technologies.”

“I was an environmentalist before it was fashionable, joining my parents on marches about saving our planet from CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) and harm to the ozone layer,” Truss boasted.

On the issue of immigration, Truss also seems to be prepped to set on continuing the open approach of Boris Johnson, under whom the number of foreign visas issued hit an all-time high of 1.1 million over the past year coupled with record numbers of illegal aliens continuing to pour across the English Channel from France.

Rather than taking a hardline position of committing to remove the UK from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) — which Britain is still bound by as it is technically a separate institution from the EU, despite sharing the same Strasbourg campus, anthem, and flag — Truss has said that she will seek to merely seek reforms so that the court “works for Britain“.

To the dismay of the anti-mass migration base of the Conservative party, she has also committed to increasing the number of seasonal migrants allowed into the country to work in short-term farm jobs during the Summer months. To deal with the ongoing boat migrant crisis in the English Channel, Truss has only pledged to increase the amount of frontline border force staff by 20 per cent, which is unlikely to do much for the problem, given that the force does nothing to prevent people-smuggler boats from arriving but rather acts as a taxi service in helping migrants come ashore on British beaches.

The proposals will likely win her no favours with the Red Wall (mostly former Labour party) voters in the working-class areas of the country, who backed Brexit with the hopes of finally curtailing mass migration. The Conservative base will likely not be pleased either, among whom immigration still ranks as their second most important voting issue.

Following the first one-on-one debate between Truss and Sunak during the Summer’s leadership debate, Brexit leader Nigel Farage said: “I don’t think London gets the level of anger over this issue. Brexit was about getting back control of our borders and those dinghies coming across the Channel every day say that we’ve failed completely and utterly in it.”

The migrant crisis, alongside the soaring cost of living, inflation, and fears over potential energy blackouts during the Winter all spells for a difficult future for Truss, who faces becoming the first incumbent Tory prime minister to lose to the opposition Labour party since John Major’s defeat to Tony Blair in 1997. With the next general election quickly approaching, Truss will have to act quickly, decisively, and most importantly conservatively.

The question that remains is whether she will be able to channel Margaret Tatcher more than merely donning her clothes, or will she become just another failed Tory prime minister, a “Theresa May 2.0”.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka