Liz Truss officially becomes the new British prime minister: Live updates | CNN (2024)

Liz Truss promised to “ride out the storm” as Prime Minister, and it’s not clear whether she was referring to the multiple crises crippling the United Kingdom or the flash shower that briefly scuppered her first big speech.

Tuesday was a busy and country-spanning day for Britain’s new leader; Truss met the Queen in Scotland to seal her promotion, and enjoyed a set-piece introduction outside the black door of Number 10.

But the reality is that Truss’ premiership starts under a cloud. Boris Johnson’s dramatic fall has tarnished the reputation of the governing Conservatives, and Brits are almost universally more concerned about their household bills than the identity of their leader.

Truss pledged action in a matter of days on the energy crisis, and put cutting taxes and boosting growth atop her priories too. She also accepted that the cherished National Health Service is buckling under pressure, pledging to restore that third rail of British public life.

Truss’ listing of the problems facing the country represented something of an awkward pitch, given her party has been been in power for 12 years. And it’s safe to say Britons’ patience is wearing creaking further with each new Tory leader.

Truss must now battle not just a perfect storm of social and economic challenges, but also a rejuvenated Labour Party and a prevailing sense among voters that the Conservatives are out of ideas.

She survived a bitter and bruising leadership campaign that saw a number of her own Conservative colleagues trash her economic plan. She must excite a party with many members who never wanted Johnson to resign anyway. And her hopes of a brighter 2023 for the nation seem to diminish with every new economic forecast.

Still, starting from a place of low expectations can be helpful to a new leader. If Truss’s plan to tackle the cost of living crisis eases the pressures facing households, she could appear as the unlikely savior of her party.

Or, to set the bar more modestly, she could become the first post-Brexit Prime Minister to make it through their third year.

That challenge begins on Wednesday, when her one-day honeymoon ends and Truss faces her first grilling at Prime Minister’s Questions.

After detailing her three top priorities, new British Prime Minister Liz Truss struck an optimistic note for the country, saying, “I am confident that together wecanrideoutthe storm.”

She underlined economy, energy and an improved NHS as the three priorities for her government that will ensure opportunity and prosperity for Britons.

“Our country was built by peoplewho get things done,” she continued. “We have huge reserves oftalent, of energy anddetermination.I am confident that together, wecanrideoutthe storm.We can rebuild our country andbecome the modern, brilliantBritain that all you know wecan be.”

New British Prime Minister Liz Truss said that growing the economy, responding to the energy crisis and improving the National Health Service are her three top priorities in the job.

“I will get Britain working again,” she said, pledging a tax-cutting economic plan that prioritizes “business-led growth.” Truss promised to cut taxes throughout her campaign to become Tory leader, despite her rival and former Chancellor Rishi Sunak warning her plans would fuel inflation.

“We’ll get spades in the ground to make sure people are not facing unaffordable energy bills,” she added.

Truss’s second priority is to tackle the energy crisis, promising “action this week to deal with energy bills.” Brits have faced huge spikes in their energy bills during 2022, and the opposition Labour Party has urged the government to freeze rates until next spring, and pay for it with a windfall tax on gas companies.

And the health service, which is struggling through a staffing crisis that has left many people unable to get appointments and treatments, rounds out Truss’s agenda. She promised to ensure that “people can get doctors’ appointment and the NHS service they need.”

“We will put our health service on a firm footing,” Truss said.

Truss said she will “transform Britain into an aspiration nation,” promising higher-paying jobs and safer streets.

“I will take action this day, and action every day, to make it happen,” she said.

Truss then emphasized Britain’s relationship with its global partners. “We can’t have security at home without having security abroad,” she added.

Liz Truss is giving her first speech as the UK’s prime minister.

She began by paying tribute to Boris Johnson, saying “history will see him as a hugely consequential prime minister.”

“What makes the United Kingdom great is our fundamental belief in freedom, in enterprise, and in fair play,” she said.

But she acknowledged “severe global headwinds,” including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the pandemic.

It briefly drenched Liz Truss’s parade, threatening to push back the new prime minister’s first speech.

Heavy rain showers have been soaking Westminster while Truss is driven to Downing Street – her MPs and aides briefly scurried inside to take cover, and a black garbage bag was placed over the podium where Truss was due to speak. The imagery isn’t ideal.

But the showers then passed, and some very damp MPs made their way back outside. It looks like Truss is going to persevere in her attempts for a set-piece introduction in front of the famous black door.

Truss’s motorcade is now just a few minutes from Westminster.

Liz Truss has landed back in London after flying back from visiting the Queen in Scotland, and is heading to 10 Downing Street.

Once she arrives, Truss will address the gaggle of reporters gathered outside – her first public remarks since becoming prime minister.

We’re expecting that within the next hour. Once she has spoken, all attention will turn to who she’s putting in her Cabinet.

If you’re just catching up, Tuesday has been a busy day in Westminster.

Britain has seen a prime ministerial change, and there’s more drama to come later. Here’s what you’ve missed:

And here’s what is coming up later on Tuesday:

Then, on Wednesday:

Liz Truss once argued for the monarchy to be abolished.

A few moments ago, she met the Queen to formally be appointed as the third female prime minister in British history, reaching the summit of her eclectic political career.

Pictures showed the monarch smiling as she welcomed Truss, the 15th leader to serve during her 70-year reign, to Balmoral.

The pair were photographed shaking hands and talking in front of a fireplace while the 96-year-old monarch held a walking stick.

Once she has left the royal estate, Truss will fly back to London and head straight to Downing Street.

Liz Truss has officially been appointed as the UK’s new prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II.

Buckingham Palace said in a statement: “The Queen received in Audience The Right Honourable Elizabeth Truss MP today and requested her to form a new Administration.

“Ms Truss accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon her appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.”

The ceremony where the monarch rubber-stamps the appointment of a new minister is sometimes referred to as “kissing hands,” though politicians are not constitutionally required to actually plant their lips on the Queen.

Official confirmation has come through from Buckingham Palace that the Queen has accepted Boris Johnson’s resignation.

“The Right Honourable Boris Johnson MP had an Audience of The Queen this morning and tendered his resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept,” the Palace’s statement read.

It means that — for the next few minutes at least — the UK does not have a prime minister.

Fortunately, the next one is on her way to Balmoral Castle. Liz Truss will meet the Queen shortly, and will become the 15th British leader during the monarch’s 70-year reign.

Boris Johnson is inside Balmoral Castle, tendering his resignation to the Queen.

We’ll likely never know what they’re talking about, but this is the final, rubber-stamping moment of Johnson’s premiership, and brings his weeks-long farewell tour to a close.

A constitutionally awkward few minutes will follow until Liz Truss enters the estate to become the UK’s prime minister. By that point, Johnson will have been unceremoniously driven away from the royal household and towards his new life.

Nadine Dorries, an uber-loyalist in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet who loudly opposed the Conservative Party’s move to replace him, has announced her resignation as culture secretary.

Dorries said in a letter that Truss asked her to stay on in the post, but that the decision to resign was hers. “I personally assured our soon-to-be Prime Minister that I will be better placed to support her from outside of the Cabinet,” she said.

She follows Priti Patel, Johnson’s controversial home secretary, who stepped down on Monday evening.Patel had been widely tipped to be replaced in the post once Truss took charge.

Dorries backed Truss for the leadership, but made many media appearances defending Johnson throughout the summer and has been extremely loyal to him since he became prime inister.

On Friday, after Times Radio presenter Cathy Newman pressed Dorries on Johnson’s rule-breaking during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, Dorries said: “Come on Cathy, you’ve broken the law, I’ve broken the law … we’ve all broken the law.”

Speculation is rife about who Truss will put in her Cabinet, and how many Johnson holdovers will survive. Allies including Kwasi Kwarteng and Suella Braverman are tipped for promotions.

A new opinion poll may make uncomfortable reading for Liz Truss as she prepares for her first day as Britain’s prime minister.

Most Brits want her to call a general election almost immediately, rather than wait out the current parliamentary term which could last another two years, the survey found.

Six in ten said they want a chance to vote this year, according to the poll by Savanta ComRes, which was conducted before Truss was officially announced as the winner of the Conservative leadership contest on Monday.

Half of the public said Truss cannot unite the country, while just 18% said she can. Meanwhile, only 18% said they had a favorable view of Truss as she prepared to take the job; 44% said they view her unfavorably.

The margin of error on the survey is plus or minus two percentage points.

The Conservatives’ poll numbers have been sinking for several months and show little sign of improving under Truss’s leadership, though previous prime ministers have enjoyed a bounce in opinion polls after taking the job.

In her first speech as Tory leader, Truss hinted that she was preparing to fight an election “in two years” – in other words, towards the end of the current Parliament, as leaders typically do.

But she could choose to call for a snap election at any time. The prospect of a dire 2023 economically, and current polling suggesting anything from a narrow Labour victory to a comfortable Labour majority, may well be weighing on her mind.

“This poll illustrates the gargantuan task awaiting the new Prime Minister,” Chris Hopkins, director of Political Research at Savanta ComRes, said in a press release.

“Not only does she have one of the most troublesome in-trays that any incoming PM has had post-war, healing the wounds caused by a fierce leadership election and uniting her party at the same time is going to take some doing.”

The companyinterviewed 2,301 British adultsbetween September 2 and 4.

Boris Johnson’s flight has landed in Aberdeen, Scotland and the outgoing leader is on his way to Balmoral Castle to resign to the Queen.

The monarch’s role in political turnover is a requirement in Britain’s unwritten constitution. Johnson will visit her to announce his intention to step down, and incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss will follow suit soon after to request to form a new government.

For Johnson, the meeting gives a chance to bid adieu. Little is truly known about these occasions, but some of Johnson’s predecessors have touched on them in their memoirs. Gordon Brown said the final official duty of going to see the sovereign doesn’t involve handing over seals of office or anything, but rather “simply saying goodbye to the Queen – and thanking her.”

In his autobiography, “My Life, Our Times,” the former Labour prime minister said that “as usual, she was charming and the occasion itself was relaxed.” Brown also recalled how the Queen humanized the situation by permitting his two young sons to be present when he received a parting gift – an inscribed photograph of the monarch.

Truss’s later meeting is more significant. It’s sometimes referred to as “kissing hands,” during which the Queen rubber-stamps the appointment of a new minister, though politicians are not constitutionally required to actually plant their lips on the monarch.

David Cameron suggested the name isn’t literal, but Tony Blair wrote in his autobiography that he fretted over how to conduct the procedure. A Palace official told him: “You don’t actually kiss the Queen’s hands in the ceremony of kissing hands. You brush them gently with your lips,” Blair recalled in his autobiography.

Read more about the ritual here.

Boris Johnson’s farewell speech as UK prime minister was lambasted by critics and political opponents, who accused him of shirking responsibility and exaggerating the achievements of his administration.

The official Twitter handle of the Prime Minister tweeted out a video of Johnson and his wife, Carrie, walking the halls of Downing Street one last time, being cheered by his aides and supporters. “Thank you Boris,” the caption read.

And a few loyal backbench Conservatives expressed their approval online – though few Cabinet members were among them.

But many opposition MPs were in a less complimentary mood.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary dubbed Johnson the “worst Prime Minister of the modern era” and accused him of using his final speech to list “imaginary achievements.”

One achievement Johnson touted was his oft-repeated – and frequently criticized – remark that his government will build 40 new hospitals. The majority of the new hospitals are actually replacements, refurbishments or improvements to existing buildings, according to fact checker Full Fact. Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is struggling through a staffing crisis, with workers stretched and patients forced to wait for procedures.

Labour MP Luke Pollard said there was “no apology” in his speech, “just more bluster.”

“This speech was a microcosm of Boris Johnson’s time in No. 10. Graceless, f*ckless, boorish, ignorant, self-righteous, isolated and, above all, deceitful to the end,” SNP lawmaker Gavin Newlands added.

Boris Johnson’s flight to Scotland has taken off from the RAF Northolt base in west London. It’s the final journey he will make as Britain’s Prime Minister.

Johnson will meet Queen Elizabeth to formally resign, and Liz Truss will soon be making the same journey to take over from him.

The Queen must formally rubber-stamp the formation of a new government. It’s an entirely ceremonial event that usually takes just a few minutes, with a car whizzing each minister to Buckingham Palace – a short distance from Downing Street.

But the 96-year-old monarch, who has experienced mobility problems this year and slimmed down her travels as a result, decided to stay put in the Scottish castle where she has spent much of her summer.

That meant an early 7:30 a.m. local time start to Johnson’s farewell speech, and could stretch out a day of political drama even further.

Boris Johnson’s final speech as prime minister went the same way as many of his previous public outings: he loudly touted what he sees as his achievements, made no mention of his failures or scandals, and showed a flash of bitterness towards those who ended up bringing him down.

“This is it, folks,” Johnson began, before he launched into a well-rehearsed list of domestic policies he is keen to chalk up as successes.

But Johnson was also keen to define himself as a statesman and was quick to cite his response to the Ukraine crisis early in the speech, suggesting that the United Kingdom’s provision of arms “may very well have helped change the course of the biggest European war of 80 years.”

As he concluded his speech, he added among his government’s triumphs: “Speaking with clarity and authority, from Ukraine to the Aukus pact with America and Australia, because we are one whole and entire United Kingdom, whose diplomat security services and armed forces are so globally admired.”

That emphasis could hint towards future career plans outside the UK — or it could merely be a tacit acknowledgement that at home, he leaves office with his country mired in an economic crisis and millions of households struggling to make ends meet.

Johnson declined the opportunity to apologize for Partygate, the scandal over a series of lockdown-era gatherings inside Downing Street, which served as the first and largest domino in his downfall. Nor did he acknowledge the decline in public trust in his government, or the constant charges from politicians left and right that he has degraded public standards.

But he did suggest that, even after a summer to reflect on the collapse of his leadership, he retains some bitterness about the way he was forced out.

His jibe about the leadership contest becoming a “relay race” after colleagues “changed the rules” came well before any mention of his successor, Liz Truss. And he reminded the public of his sweeping election victory less than three years ago, which left many pundits predicting a new political dynasty with Johnson at the helm.

“I’m proud to have discharged the promises I made to my party when you were kind enough to choose me, winning the biggest majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979,” Johnson said.

But British politics is notoriously brutal; his colleagues moved quickly to depose Johnson this summer after the glimmer of that electoral success was extinguished by months of scandal and sinking poll numbers. And now, after being cheered off from Downing Street, Johnson is traveling to Scotland to formally submit his resignation to the Queen and begin his life as a private citizen.

“This is a tough time for the economy. This is a tough time for families up and down the country,” Boris Johnson acknowledged, as he turned towards the cost-of-living crisis that Liz Truss will need to immediately respond to as new prime minister.

“We can and we will get through it, and we will come out stronger the other side,” Johnson said. “But I say to my fellow Conservatives: it’s time for politics to be over, folks.”

He also thanked his staff, his Cabinet, his dog Dilyn and the Downing Street cat, Larry — using the two pets as an example for the ruling Conservative Party, after a bitter campaign that saw two senior politicians lambasting each other’s plans for government.

“I just say to my party if Dilyn and Larry can put behind them their occasional difficulties, then so can the Conservative Party,” Johnson said.

“Above all, thanks to you, to the British people, to the voters, for giving me the chance to serve, all of you who worked so tirelessly together to beat Covid, to put us where we are today,” Johnson said.

In his final speech as the UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson suggested some simmering anger at the way he was forced out as leader, telling the assembled crowd outside Downing Street that the leadership challenge “unexpectedly turned out to be arelayrace — they changed the rules halfway through, but never mind that now.”

Johnson was forced out weeks after surviving a confidence vote, following a series of scandals over dishonesty and rule-breaking, and having lost the support of his fellow lawmakers.

He went on claim that “unemployment [is] down to lows not seen since I was about 10 years old and bouncing around on a space hopper,” before turning to his next moves.

“On the subject of bouncing around and future careers, let me say that I am now like one of this booster rockets that has fulfilled its function, and I will now be gently reentering the atmospheres and splashing down invisible in some remote and obscure corner of the Pacific,” Johnson said.

“Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plow, and I will be offering this government nothing but my fervent support,” referring to a Roman statesman who according to legend devoted himself to the republic during times of crisis.

“It’s time for us all to get behind Liz Truss and her team and her program,” Johnson went on.

It has been rumored that Johnson might consider a return to politics, perhaps even during the current Parliament if Truss struggles to gain the support of the public, and his speech did not boost or allay that speculation.

Boris Johnson is giving his farewell speech outside Downing Street, with his Cabinet and allies cheering him on above the noise of protesters from the street.

“In only a couple of hours I will be in Balmoral to see Her Majesty the Queen, and the torch will finally be passed to a new Conservative leader,” Johnson said.

He began by touting what he considers his biggest achievements; rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine and helping provide Ukraine with arms in its war against Russia.

“If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin thinks that he can succeed by blackmailing and bullying the British people, then he is utterly deluded,” he added.

Before Liz Truss can take over at Downing Street, her predecessor must say goodbye.

Boris Johnson will make a speech soon outside Number 10, before traveling to Scotland to formally offer his resignation to the Queen.

It’s a humbling day for the outgoing leader, who won a resounding majority in the December 2019 general election, only to see his premiership crumble under the weight of multiple scandals.

Johnson is likely to claim a list of achievements before his three-year stint in office comes to an end.

Britain will officially have a new leader – its fourth in just over six years – on Tuesday, when Liz Truss travels to Scotland to meet the Queen and get the official go-ahead to form a new government.

Truss won the Conservative Party leadership contest on Monday, defeating her Cabinet-colleague-turned-rival Rishi Sunak after a campaign that stretched across the summer.

She was not elected by the British public, but thanks to the votes of 81,326 Tory members. Now she must take charge of one of the world’s largest economies, and appeal to tens of millions of voters.

Truss is expected to announce her new Cabinet and speak outside Downing Street on Tuesday – but the reality is that few Brits appear overly excited about their new leader.

That’s because a spiralling cost-of-living crisis is the issue of the day. Household bills are soaring for every household, and Truss will be under pressure from day one to announce how she plans to help.

Truss also inherits a party that is tanking in opinion polls, after 12 years in power. A fall from grace for Boris Johnson, who was forced to quit after a seemingly endless series of scandals over rule-breaking and dishonesty, has tainted the reputations of many senior Tories by association – and Truss will look to signal a fresh start while maintaining the support of her party.

And, on the international stage, Truss must manage Britain’s response to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, while also overseeing a bitter spat with the EU over the UK’s post-Brexit arrangements.

Truss will start working on that looming in-tray later today.