MPs demand general election following Liz Truss's victory over Rishi Sunak in Conservative leadership contest as Boris Johnson set to step down at Prime Minister

The Foreign Secretary’s victory in the contest over former Chancellor Rishi Sunak was confirmed this afternoon (Monday, September 5) at a live event in London.

Boris Johnson’s announced in July that he would step down as Prime Minister, with Truss expected to meet the Queen tomorrow (Tuesday, September 6) to formally take over Downing Street.

But her appointment – making her the fourth successive Tory Prime Minister since 2010 – has prompted calls for an election for the wider public to approve for reject her for the top job.

South Shields MP Emma Lewell-Buck said: £Today and in the coming weeks the new PM will try to convince us that things are different and our lives will improve, but this will be more empty rhetoric.

"The last PM has brought our country to its knees, public services decimated, strikes, cost of living crisis, low growth, low wages and no answers.

"Liz Truss was a member of Boris Johnson’s cabinet; she didn’t just vote for the measures that have caused this chaos she championed and implemented them.

"Today will change nothing, another Tory in number 10 is not the answer to the country’s problems – we need a General Election now.”

The leadership contest was decided by less than 200,000 members of the Conservative Party.

Announcing the result, Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 group of backbench Tory MPs, confirmed 82.6% of a possible 172,437 ballots had been cast.

Truss received 81,326 votes compared to 60,399 for rival Sunak – a closer margin than many analysts had expected.

Jarrow MP Kate Osborne added: “Johnson has left the country in a state of crisis, with the majority living in fuel poverty, spiraling inflation, widening regional inequality, sewage pumped into our waterways and our NHS on it’s knees.

“We sorely need a leader who can get a grip of the big issues – yet Liz Truss’s record does not inspire confidence.

“It was Truss who cut millions from the Environment Agency's budget

“Truss who is threatening to set a bonfire to workers rights and impose pay cuts.

“Truss promising to hand billions more to energy companies - companies that have already earned 170 billion in excess profits, telling the BBC these tax cuts for the richest are fair.

“Truss as Minister for Women and Equalities who oversaw the clock being turned back on gender equality and instead of tackling inequalities declared a ‘war on woke’.

“Truss, for the last 12 years, has been part of the erosion of our living standards, with the Conservative ethos of profit good, public services bad.

“The Conservatives will try to spin Truss’s Premiership as a new chapter - yet no page has been turned. If the Conservatives are so sure that Truss is the right choice as leader of our country, they should put it to the people and let the electorate decide – because I have no doubt that the next Tory Government will be no better than the last.”