Liz Truss officially becomes British Prime Minister

At an audience with Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, held on September 6 at Her Majesty’s residence in Scotland, at Balmoral Castle, Foreign Minister Elizabeth (Liz) Truss was asked to become prime minister and form a new government.

“Miss Truss accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed her hand upon her appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement. At 4 pm London time, Truss delivered her first address to the nation as the new prime minister.

Both Truss and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie visited the residence of Elizabeth II in Scotland. The meeting between Elizabeth II and the Johnsons took place at 11.20 London time and lasted about 40 minutes.

After Johnson formally resigned, Buckingham Palace issued a statement: “The Right Honorable Member of Parliament Boris Johnson received an audience with the Queen this morning and resigned as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which Her Majesty was graciously received.”

After an audience with the Queen, Johnson and his wife left the residence, and he hastened to change the description of his Twitter profile to “former prime minister of the United Kingdom.”

According to TASS, he spent 1340 days at the head of the government and took 7th place among the prime ministers who left this post the fastest. He took up this post on July 25, 2019.

Immediately after Johnson’s departure, Elizabeth II had a meeting with Truss.

In the morning, the former Prime Minister gave a farewell speech in front of the government residence on Downing Street. He began his speech with a story about the work done by his government – Brexit, the fight against coronavirus and support for Ukraine. He also spoke about the support of the next prime minister, Liz Truss, and expressed the hope that she would continue to resist Russia, and also be able to overcome the crisis.

“I will support Liz Truss and the new government every step of the way,” Johnson said. He did not say anything specific about his future plans, noting only that he was like the first stage of a rocket, “which has fulfilled its function” and now “it will fall unnoticed somewhere in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.” In addition, he compared himself with the ancient Roman commander Cincinnatus. “Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plow and will be ready to offer my fiery support to the government,” Johnson said (quoted by TASS).

The speech of the outgoing Prime Minister took about seven minutes, after which he and his wife left Downing Street.

Johnson announced his desire to step down as Prime Minister and head of the UK Conservative Party on July 7. This decision was preceded by a series of “protest” dismissals of 11 ministers and several dozen high-ranking British officials. They left office under the slogan of the need for Johnson’s resignation after a series of scandals – in particular, in 2020, the prime minister and his staff were caught participating in parties at Christmas, at a time when a hard lockdown was introduced across the country due to the coronavirus. Another reason was the scandal with the deputy chief organizer of the ruling Conservative party in the House of Commons, Chris Pincher – it became known that Johnson, appointing him to high posts, knew that in 2017 he was already a defendant in a parliamentary investigation into harassment.

Several people applied for the post of head of the conservative party, but only former finance minister Rishi Sunak and Truss reached the final. On September 5, it became known that Truss had won the internal party vote.