Liz Truss, the former British prime minister who staked her brief tenure on tax cuts and deregulation, is warning Americans about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s socialist agenda will mirror the high-tax, high-regulation model she fought in the U.K.
‘I’ve seen what’s happened with Mamdani being elected,’ former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. ‘We have characters like that in Britain. They are never satisfied. They keep putting up taxes. They keep putting up more regulations. We have seen in Britain appalling development of antisemitism. That’s what I fear for New York.’
Mamdani plans to pay for his ambitious campaign promises, including fast and free buses, universal childcare and city-run grocery stores, by raising taxes on corporations and the top 1% of New Yorkers. As the 34-year-old mayor-elect prepares to move into Gracie Mansion, critics have compared his agenda to European-style social welfare programs.
The British conservative served just 49 days as prime minister of the U.K. in 2022 before resigning amid market turmoil over her administration’s dramatic attempt to implement a pro-growth economic agenda. Now that the dust has settled, Truss has launched a private club for ‘pro-growth leaders,’ the Leconfield, and a YouTube show, ‘The Liz Truss Show.’
‘The Leconfield is about economic growth,’ Truss said. ‘It’s about prosperity. It’s about building that network of senior business executives, entrepreneurs, political leaders to create new opportunities in Britain and around the world. We need to see economic growth. That is the most important thing.’
Truss said her new members-only club will unite business leaders in Mayfair in co-working spaces and executive suites. The Times reported that Truss has requested £500,000 from each of the 700 Leconfield founding members for the lifetime membership.
‘This will bring together people in real-life to exchange those ideas, but it will also provide a space in London where people can do business. Currently, people end up in hotel lobbies. They are trying to work in clubs that maybe ban laptops or mobile phones. This will have boardrooms, executive space where people can get business done,’ Truss said.
According to a 2025 analysis by Henley & Partners, a global investment-migration consultancy, the United Kingdom is losing millionaires and billionaires faster than any country in the world.
‘Our taxes are too high,’ Truss explained. ‘Our regulation is too high, and our energy prices are also sky-high. This has meant people leaving, businesses leaving. It’s difficult to build new buildings because of all the regulations, and even though we’re sitting on masses of oil and gas, fracking is banned, so our energy prices are high, and it’s not surprising that that makes us uncompetitive.’
While Truss briefly lifted a ban on fracking in the U.K. in 2022 in an attempt to unleash energy production, her successor, Rishi Sunak, reinstated the moratorium that ended support for new fracking projects.
Like Truss, President Donald Trump has moved to reverse key Biden-era climate regulations as part of his key campaign promise to ‘unleash American energy,’ signing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July, which includes rollbacks on clean-energy incentives and repeals green energy mandates.
As Trump’s sweeping second-term agenda reshapes U.S. and global markets, his reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs have pushed some countries to reopen trade talks amid heightened market tensions.
Asked about Trump using tariffs to pressure the U.K. and the rest of Europe to pay more for certain goods, including U.S. medicine, Truss offered a surprisingly complimentary view of his strategy.
‘I was trade secretary in Britain, and I signed 60 trade deals as trade secretary, and I know that in order to get deals done you have to negotiate and you have to use leverage, and it’s exactly what I did as trade secretary, so I know that is how you get the deals done,’ Truss told Fox News Digital.
Her stance is a sharp departure from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has urged Trump to scale back tariff measures that could hurt the British economy.
Truss told Fox News Digital that her new YouTube channel, ‘The Liz Truss Show,’ will be a ‘free speech’ platform for exploring British and Western politics outside the mainstream media bubble.
Mamdani’s transition team did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.