Liz Truss is now the PM: Here's what she has planned for Britain

Liz Truss has officially won the Tory leadership election.

This means the Tories have chosen the new leader of their party, but given they are the governing party, it also means they have chosen the prime minister for the rest of us. Thanks.

So how screwed are we? What will a Truss Britain look like? Full of cheese and pork markets, perhaps, but Truss is more than her memes.

Indeed, we've had a dig into her views and policies to try and make a sense of what the next few years could look like.

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So welcome to Truss's Britain, and yes, you will need to show your passport to get in.

Brexit

While Truss was once a Remainer, she has since come round to the idea of Brexit and speaking during one of her leadership hustings she pledged to "unleash the full potential of Brexit,". Whether that means more queues in Dover or arguments about cars remains to be seen but we can wait.

What she has said is that by the end of 2023, she has promised to scrap or replace EU laws deemed to hold back the economy.

And she also said she thought the policy could lead to disruption but hasn't seen that, making her place her faith in Britain's future outside of the EU.

Someone get her some glasses.

Culture wars

If you thought the end of Johnson would precipitate a ceasefire in the pointless culture wars in which Tories weaponise the lives of ordinary people to gain votes and distract from the big picture (like an ACTUAL war in Ukraine, for instance) you'd be wrong.

Truss has consistently shoehorned ways to promote single-sex spaces during hustings and one of her favourite lines she dishes out when applause is quieting is "I know a woman is a woman".

In October she told The Telegraph she had “full respect for transgender people” but that “it wouldn’t be right to have self-identification with no checks and balances in the system”, showing her arsenal is more than charged for the battles ahead.

Diplomacy and foreign policy

Truss has said she will "ignore" Nicola Sturgeon, the democratically elected leader of Scotland and that "the jury's out" when it comes to whether Emmanuel Macron, the democratically elected leader of France, is a friend or foe.

She also called Welsh leader Mark Drakeford "a low energy version of Jeremy Corbyn" and pronounced the Irish word “Taoiseach” as “tea sock” in an interview in June.

Make all of that what you will when considering how Truss will be viewed on the international stage.

In terms of her policies, she has pledged continued support to Ukraine and wants to increase defence spending by bringing a target of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence forward to 2026 and introducing a new target of 3 per cent by 2030.

As for whether she'd be prepared to hit the nuclear button, she said: "I think it's an important duty of the prime minister and I'm ready to do that… I'm ready to do that."

Economy

Truss is known for being a libertarian Thatcherite - that's free trade, low tax, work not welfare, slashing red tape, shrinking the public sector type Conservatism.

In a speech launching her campaign, she pledged to move away from "business-as-usual economic management," adding this had delivered "low growth for decades".

She promised to reverse April's National Insurance hike, reverse next year's scheduled rise in corporation tax and set up "low tax zones" to help attract business.

She will plan an emergency budget but says she won't cut public spending and says she will pay for the cuts by spreading the UK's "Covid debt" over a longer period, something Sunak is dead against.

She has also ruled out a windfall tax to help raise funds to deal with the cost of living crisis.

At a hustings, she said: “One thing I absolutely don’t support is a windfall tax. I think it’s a Labour idea, it’s all about bashing business and it sends the wrong message to international investors and to the public.”

Housing

Truss has pledged to make it easier for renters to prove they are ready to take on a mortgage and she also plans to scrap national housebuilding targets on green belt land.

She said she would end "Stalinist" housing targets - the government currently wants 300,000 homes built in England every year - and wants to make it easier to build on brownfield sites.

Education

Truss said every child should have “the best opportunity to succeed” wherever they are from and whatever their background.

For her, that means she would replace failing schools with free schools, get students to apply after they get their A-levels rather based on predicted grades and try and make every student receiving top grades to get automatically invited to apply to Oxford and Cambridge

She also wants more mental health support available in schools.

Climate

Truss said she will honour the goal of reaching net zero by 2050.

But she will suspend the "green levy" part of energy bills that pays for green projects and would cut subsidies for solar farms because she thinks they are "a blight on the landscape".

She also wants more nuclear power and would review the ban on fracking.

Migration

In terms of migration and the controversial Rwanda plan, Truss believes it is “completely moral” and would help to “break the business model of these appalling people traffickers who are trading in misery.”

She wants to increase Border Force capacity by 20 per cent and strengthen the UK Bill of Rights to be tougher on illegal immigration.

Crime

Truss plans to compare police forces’ performance by introducing league tables which sounds a bit dystopian if you ask us.

She has also said police will spend less time on “Twitter rows and hurt feelings” - whatever that means - and wants police officers to receive mandatory training on helping domestic abuse victims.

Unions

Truss would reportedly ban public sector strikes and increase the vote needed for strike action to 50 per cent, up from 40 per cent.

The minimum notice period for strike action would also be raised from two weeks to four weeks, so we doubt the likes of Mick Lynch will be thrilled with her.

Media

Truss hasn't exactly seemed enamoured with the media - we won't take it personally.

During a GB News-led husting she snubbed the BBC. And at aTalkTV event Tom Newton Dunn confronted her for "cheap" digs about the media 'framing' things.

When she isn't appearing in front of the media to attack the media, she is swerving it altogether and was recently criticised for cancelling an interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson. During her leadership campaign, she also ducked Andrew Neil and has in the past been empty-chaired for not turning up to a GMB interview about Partygate.

The next few years should go just fine...

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