Britain will get its third prime minister in just over three years as the ruling Conservative Party announced Sept. 5 it had chosen Liz Truss to be its new leader.
Truss—who had appointed as secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs last year—succeeds Boris Johnson, who defied many of Britain's political traditions, USA Today noted. Johnson resigned in July after senior members of his government turned against him amid a series of scandals connected to breaking his own coronavirus lockdown rules and waning appetite for his brand of populist politics.
Because Britain elects a party and not a specific leader, the party in power has some scope to swap in a new prime minister. Truss was selected by about 160,000 grassroots members of the Conservative Party—a figure that represents less than 1% of the United Kingdom's population of 67 million.
Politico reported in early August that Truss bungled an attempt to gain an endorsement for her record on LGBTQ+ rights.
Truss' campaign staff said they wanted to publish a piece by Dehenna Davison, a rising star of the Conservative Party who is openly bisexual, with the support of LGBT+ Conservatives. However, Davison had reportedly not been consulted in advance and the approach by Truss's team was rejected, partly because LGBT+ Conservatives cannot back one candidate over another.
On Sept. 5, PinkNews ran an article entitled "7 reasons Liz Truss as prime minister is terrifying for LGBTQ+ people." A few of the reasons include Truss' anti-trans views (as she and opponent Rishi Sunak claim trans females aren't women), her pledge to move away from the "identity politics" of the left and her failure to ban conversion therapy.
