Liz Truss, the leading candidate to succeed Boris Johnson as the next prime minister of the UK, has said that if elected to the top post she will scrap all remaining European Union laws that still apply in Britain, by 2023, Khaleej Times reported Saturday.
Truss, who is currently the Foreign Secretary, is up against former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, in the race to court the 200,000 members of the Conservative Party who, will vote to choose the country’s new prime minister.
Britain’s relationship with Europe remains a major concern for the Conservative Party membership, which is generally perceived to being more eurosceptic than the wider population.
Although Truss campaigned for ‘remain’ in the 2016 referendum, she is now seen as the heir to Johnson’s pro-Brexit position and has thus promised to purge all remaining EU laws from the statute books in a bid to tap into the Conservative Party’s Brexit concerns.
“EU regulations hinder our businesses and this has to change,” said Truss in a statement, adding that she was setting out her credentials as the “Brexit delivery” prime minister:
Her deadline of 2023 is earlier than a similar pledge made by Sunak, who campaigned for Brexit in 2016 but had been vilified by some sections of the Conservative Party for raising taxes to their highest level in decades.
Sunak said EU law would either be scrapped, or reformed, by the next election, which is expected in 2024. Truss currently has the upper hand over Sunak by 62 per cent to 38 per cent among Conservative Party members.
