The new British Prime Minister Liz Truss, elected on Monday September 5, “will have a difficult task facing her, as she inherits the most difficult situation since the Second World War“, says Sophie Loussouarn, lecturer at the University of Picardie Jules-Verne, specialist in British civilization and history.
franceinfo: What does this victory represent for Liz Truss?
Sophie Loussouarn: She won a lesser victory than Boris Johnson in 2019, but it was still a decisive victory with 57.4% of the support of the 160,000 members who voted for her. She will have a difficult task ahead of her, as she inherits the most difficult situation since the Second World War, very similar to that inherited by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, when the country was ruined. Liz Truss will have to unite the Conservative Party, which is more divided than ever, and she faces many challenges, with a major economic crisis, with the highest inflation in forty years expected to reach 13% in October and possibly be 16.8% in January 2023. There is a rise in energy prices and interest rates, the fall in the pound and growth, and the problem of balancing the public accounts.
She faces demonstrations and strikes: is the “Thatcher method” necessary in this context?
His priority is still to reduce taxes, which was not the top priority of Margaret Thatcher, who had as a priority to reduce inflation. Liz Truss is indeed replacing Margaret Thatcher because she wants to reduce regulation, reduce the size of the state and appoint a council of economic experts. She is the heiress of Margaret Thatcher insofar as she has been the benchmark for the Conservative Party since Winston Churchill, but she inherited an economic and social crisis, with the historic strike movement that the Kingdom experienced United during this summer of discontent with the railwaymen of the London Underground, the dockers, then the postal workers. This strike could extend into September, with the growing dissatisfaction of the population with the increase in energy prices. The “enough is enough” movement is planning a number of demonstrations in September to cap energy prices, raise public sector wages, question the increase in national insurance and increase the universal credit of 20 pounds per week.
Liz Truss does not arrive just after an election: does she not risk being a transitional Prime Minister?
Her aim is to lead the Conservative Party to victory in the next general election in 2024. She announced this in her victory speech this afternoon. But it is not only facing an economic crisis, it is also facing unprecedented geopolitical challenges: the war in Ukraine, relations with China, Russia and the European Union, and above all constitutional challenges with the question of Scotland, which is claiming its independence, and of Northern Ireland, while Liz Truss has affirmed her desire to renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol. Finally, it will have to restore confidence in the institutions and restore an image of integrity to the Prime Minister, after the “party gate” crisis, which had affected Boris Johnson and led to his resignation on July 7, 2022.