Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, potential successor to Boris Johnson, takes on the Brexit job
- UK makes foreign minister lead EU negotiator after shock exit of David Frost
- Liz Truss is widely seen as a potential successor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson promoted UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to take over post-Brexit negotiations with the European Union. It adds to her hold over diplomacy, enduring influence over trade and strengthens her potential claim to succeed him as UK prime minister.
There’s political peril for Johnson in the public health imperatives resulting from an alarming surge in the omicron variant of coronavirus. It risks straining the country’s venerated National Health Service.
Any hope Johnson may have had for respite over the Christmas holidays and parliamentary recess has likely dissipated. His Tories have plunged behind Labour in national polls, and Johnson’s personal ratings have dived. Two years after winning a landslide general election, his administration has been plunged into scandal, from members of parliament betraying a conflict of interest to his own people breaking Covid rules the government set.
That brings into sharper focus the elevation of 46-year-old Truss, especially as Johnson’s star has waned. After Johnson, she is arguably the most powerful person in government next to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, another name touted as future prime minister material.
The Times reported that Truss and Sunak are among top 10 ministers resisting calls to toughen the Covid rules before Christmas. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg also oppose the move, the paper said.
The Conservatives, one of the most successful parties in Europe, are ruthless at disposing of leaders they no longer see as winners. Many political observers are reading the tea leaves and looking for signs that a leadership challenge to Johnson could be brewing. The timing is tricky, in the middle of a pandemic with an actual general election that can be put off until 2024.
Johnson’s quick move to fill the post with a cabinet big-hitter underlines the importance he places on the role as the UK tries to reshape trading terms it agreed just a year ago with the bloc. Truss campaigned for Remain in the 2016 referendum, but has since embraced Brexit with the zeal of a convert.
She now has the power, and Johnson’s ear, to shape the UK’s relationship with its closest neighbours after a fractious divorce from the EU. If Brussels was hoping for a soft touch, Truss would not be it. An ardent fan of Margaret Thatcher, both in her embrace of free markets and her disdain for the EU, she operates within a party that has purged many of its europhiles.