Britain's Queen Elizabeth II has appointed Liz Truss as the new prime minister a day after the former foreign secretary won the ruling party’s leadership race.
Truss, 47, on Monday won the ruling Conservative Party’s leadership contest, gaining the parliamentary majority to become the country’s next prime minister and replacing her predecessor, who was forced to resign.
“The Queen received in Audience The Right Honorable Elizabeth Truss MP today and requested her to form a new Administration,” a Buckingham Palace statement said.
“Ms. Truss accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon her appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury,” it added.
Truss is set to form a new government, with the country facing skyrocketing inflation, which has caused the worsening cost-of-living crisis in the UK.
The new prime minister, who has promised tax cuts to relieve the burden of a toxic economic situation on people, has said that she is going to set out “immediate action” in her first week on the job to tackle rising energy bills and to increase energy supplies.
The outgoing Boris Johnson, who was forced to resign after a series of scandalous incidents, delivered his farewell speech on Tuesday, vowing support for his successor during a "tough time".
The scandal-marred Johnson claimed his government had many achievements in the last three years, saying he could get the challenging Brexit done and deliver “the fastest vaccine roll out in Europe”.
Johnson tried to pin the blame for the current economic crisis in the UK on Moscow, insisting, that if Russian President Vladimir Putin "thinks that he can succeed by blackmailing or bullying the British people then he is utterly deluded."
He highlighted his government's export of deadly weapons to Ukraine to fight the Russians and thanked people "who organized those prompt early supplies of weapons", an action he said may have “changed the course of the biggest European war in decades”.