Liz Truss Has A Steep Climb Ahead | Opinion

Liz Truss is the fourth Conservative politician to hold the office of British prime minister in the space of six years. This is an abysmal record which reflects appallingly on the country. You expect such high turnover among the managers of professional sports teams, not among leaders of one of the world's wealthiest nations.

How has it come to this? Quite simply, it is a result of Britain's parliamentary system. Britons do not vote for their prime minister; they vote for a political party.

In general elections, the party which secures a majority of seats in the House of Commons holds power. The leader of that party automatically becomes prime minister. But if enough MPs in that party want to get rid of their leader (as happened recently to Boris Johnson, and also to Margaret Thatcher in 1990) they can do so whenever they choose, and a new leader takes over.

After Johnson announced his resignation in July, a sufficient number of Conservative MPs backed Truss (and her colleague Rishi Sunak) to put her in contention to succeed him as party leader and, therefore, as prime minister. The final say was given to 172,000 Conservative Party members. After an eight-week contest, the members picked her over Sunak. This has been Truss' route to the top job. And what a poisoned chalice it looks to be.

It is no exaggeration to say that Truss faces some of the most daunting challenges for a prime minister since Winston Churchill entered the office in 1940. Churchill had to govern a country engaged in the Second World War, with the Blitz beginning shortly after he took office. Yet the scale of the mountain which Truss must climb is also nightmarish.

Energy bills have gone through the roof, triggering a financial panic; the National Health Service is in meltdown despite receiving ever-increasing amounts of taxpayers' money every year; public faith in law and order has plummeted; thousands of illegal immigrants are crossing the English Channel every week in small boats, placing further strain on public finances; and inflation is soaring. The Bank of England warned this week that U.K. inflation could hit 22 percent early next year if energy prices continue to climb.

The list of obstacles facing Truss doesn't end there. The U.K.'s growth figures are desperate, with stagflation a dismal reality for the first time since the 1970s. And the British model of importing large amounts of cheap unskilled foreign labor has led to productivity lower than that even of France, a fact which I find incredible. Entrepreneurship has not been encouraged.

All of this has happened under the Conservative Party, which has been in government for 12 years. Even in good times, the electorate can be ruthless in voting to change the governing party. But these are among the worst of times for Britain.

If Truss wants to remain in power for any length of time, and if she wants to have a hope of winning the next general election, she needs to do three things. She must boost the economy by helping small businesses; she must stop the illegal immigrants crossing the channel; and she must ensure that Britain becomes energy independent.

The United Kingdom hangs on the edge of a precipice, beneath which is a total collapse in economic confidence and the threat of the pound reaching parity with the dollar. While Truss cannot solve the energy crisis in time for this winter, she must give the market a very clear signal that by 2024 the country will be on top of it.

Currency moves around the world are now dominated by energy. I feel increasingly that the conflict in Ukraine is less about Vladimir Putin's desire to gain territory and more about his decision to start an energy war. Truss must act immediately to counter this crisis.

Truss said this week that she was elected as a conservative and she will govern as a conservative. These words are welcome to my ears and those of millions of voters. But the party's track record since 2010 is far from acceptable. I have been among its fiercest critics.

For the good of Britain's future, however, I will give Truss every chance. I hope that everybody in the country can give her their support. It is in the national interest for her to succeed. If she does not, Britain's place in the world will sink. And the Conservative Party, under its new leader, could well find itself in the last-chance saloon.

Nigel Farage is senior editor-at-large of Newsweek's "The Debate" platform.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.