‘Hi Liz, as a former prime minister (albeit for only 49 days) you do realise the United Kingdom does not have “executive orders”’
Former prime minister Liz Truss has faced backlash on social media after calling for an “executive order” to prevent Oxbridge from introducing measures to support disadvantaged students.
A report in The Telegraph said Oxford and Cambridge are looking at moving towards more “inclusive assessments” such as open-book tests or take-home papers instead of traditional in-person exams.
The initiative is aimed at helping to close the grades gap between white, middle-class students and undergraduates from minority backgrounds.
In a post on X, Truss, who herself went to a state school before attending Oxford, criticised Oxbridge’s efforts to support disadvantaged groups, saying: “Please can we have an Executive Order that bans this anti-meritocratic nonsense.”
Users on X mocked Truss’ post, with one user, Stephanie Hayden, responding: “Hi Liz, as a former prime minister (albeit for only 49 days) you do realise the United Kingdom does not have “executive orders”. Perhaps legislation, or even orders-in-council, but not “executive orders”. The UK is not the USA. Happy to help.”
Another said: “Move to America then. We don’t have executive orders here. If we did, perhaps Sir Keir could make an order that forbids you from posting absolute boll***s”.
“Absolutely incredible you ever became PM, I’ll never get over how well you fooled the country,” another posted.
Since his inauguration last Monday, Donald Trump has signed a series of draconian executive orders, including banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes, declaring that there are “only two genders,” ending birthright citizenship, and withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organisation.
In response to Trump signing these orders, Tory MPs have been calling on the prime minister Keir Starmer to follow Trump and abandon DEI policies within the civil service.
The former home secretary Suella Braverman also said that the UK should withdraw from the Paris Agreeent and World Health Organisation.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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