UK’s Foreign Secretary, Truss Confirms Bid To Replace PM Boris Johnson

Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, has announced her bid to become the Conservative party’s new leader on Sunday, making her the tenth contender in the race.

The new Tory leader will replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was forced to step down after dozens of members of the government resigned in protest after a series of scandals.

Truss joins contenders, including trade minister Penny Mordaunt, former health secretaries Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt, ex-chancellor Rishi Sunak, his successor Nadhim Zahawi, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

Senior backbencher Tom Tugendhat and former minister Kemi Badenoch have also thrown their hats into the ring.

Writing in The Telegraph, she said: “Under my leadership, I would start cutting taxes from day one to take immediate action to help people deal with the cost of living.

“I would reverse the national insurance increase that came in during April, make sure we keep corporation tax competitive so we can attract business and investment into Britain, and put the COVID-19 debt on a longer-term footing.”

Truss argued, “it isn’t right to be putting up taxes now”, and as leader, she would take “immediate action” to assist with living costs.

She said she would “keep corporation tax competitive”, hinting that she wants to look again at Sunak’s plans to hike the rate in April 2023 but did not go so far as to match some of her fellow contenders’ pledges to scrap the rise entirely.

Truss said she would “get the private sector growing faster than the public sector, with a long-term plan to bring down the size of the state and the tax burden”.

Truss said her plan would get the country back on track towards becoming a “high-growth and high-productivity powerhouse”.

“It is built on a clear and longstanding Conservative philosophy, including bold supply-side reform,” she added.

She said she had “led the way” in making the most of Britain’s “new-found freedoms” outside the EU but insisted “we can go further, whether it is doing more to champion innovation or charting our own course on regulation”.