LIZ Truss will face Rishi Sunak as the Tory leadership race whittled down to two on Wednesday.

The former chancellor and the foreign secretary finished in the top two places after five rounds of voting by Tory MPs, with Penny Mordaunt eliminated from the race to replace Boris Johnson after a bitter contest in Westminster.

Mr Sunak and Ms Truss will now face a campaign to win the votes of Tory members, with the result of the contest announced on September 5.

The winner is expected to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister the following day.

But who is Liz Truss? Here’s what you need to know.

Is Liz Truss a Brexiteer

The highest office in the land is now within grasping distance for Ms Truss, but she is no stranger to political transformations.

Having marched in her youth side-by-side with left-wingers to demand the ousting of Margaret Thatcher, she is now seen by supporters as the heir to the Iron Lady’s throne.

Liz Truss is now an avid Brexiteer, however she did campaign to Remain during the referendum.

 she shifted from arguing to stay in the EU at the 2016 referendum to become a strong defender of the decision to leave.

She inherited the role of Foreign Secretary in September after Mr Raab was moved aside in the wake of his handling of the Afghanistan crisis.

Here, she would take a tough stance in talks and anger the EU with legislation threatening to potentially break international law over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

South Wales Argus: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss meeting European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic for talks in central London on the Northern Ireland Protocol (Rob Pinney/PA)Foreign Secretary Liz Truss meeting European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic for talks in central London on the Northern Ireland Protocol (Rob Pinney/PA)

What does Liz Truss stand for?

Although President of Oxford University Liberal Democrats while studying  Ms Truss joined the Conservative Party in 1998.

Born in Oxford in 1975 to parents she describes as “left-wing”, her mother, a nurse and a teacher, took a young Ms Truss to marches for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s and to “peace camp”.

Aged four, she moved to Paisley in Scotland, where she has recalled yelling a slogan that perhaps no other Tory Cabinet minister has ever yelled before.

“It was in Scottish so it was ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, oot, oot, oot,” she has told the BBC.

But Ms Truss also had an early “fascination” with Mrs Thatcher, saying that she was around eight when she agreed to play her during a mock school election. “I got no votes,” she conceded.

Ms Truss says her father, a mathematics professor, has long struggled to comprehend her move to conservatism, believing, perhaps wishfully, she is a “sleeper working from inside to overthrow the regime”.

The family upped sticks to Leeds, where Ms Truss attended the Roundhay state secondary school before studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

There she became active in student politics, first with the Liberal Democrats, even once espousing an anti-monarchist sentiment.

“I think it was fair to say that, when I was in my youth, I was a professional controversialist and I liked exploring ideas and stirring things up,” she told the BBC’s Political Thinking With Nick Robinson.

In the current leadership race, she has sought to portray herself as her tax-cutting heir during the fight for No 10, though Mr Sunak has sought to claim the same mantle with his very different approach.

Does Liz Truss have a child with Hugh O’Leary?

After meeting at a Conservative party convention in 1997, Liz Truss married Hugh O’Leary in 2000. The couple have two daughters.