Truss says best to ignore attention-seeking Sturgeon

Tory leadership hopeful Liz Truss has claimed it is best to ignore "attention seeker" Nicola Sturgeon.

The foreign secretary criticised Scotland's first minister before ruling out a second independence referendum.

Speaking at a hustings event in Exeter, Ms Truss described herself as "a child of the Union", having spent some of her youth living in Paisley.

Scotland's deputy first minister John Swinney said her comments were "completely and utterly unacceptable".

Talking to voters at the hustings event, Ms Truss said: "I really believe we're a family and we're better together."

Tory party members then cheered and applauded as she said: "I think the best thing to do with Nicola Sturgeon is ignore her.

"She's an attention seeker, that's what she is.

"What we need to do is show the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales what we're delivering for them and making sure that all of our government policies apply right across the United Kingdom."

Nicola Sturgeon was accused by Liz Truss of being an attention seeker

Ms Truss later replied "no, no, no" when asked about whether she would support another independence referendum in Scotland if she becomes prime minister.

Mr Swinney told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that Scotland had been "ridden roughshod over" by the attitudes of the Conservative party over the last few years.

He cited the UK Internal Market Bill as an example of an "erosion" to democracy in Scotland.

He said: "When people are saying to us we would like our two governments to work more closely together, this comment from Liz Truss demonstrates what we are up against.

"I come across this frequently when I'm dealing with the UK government - a contempt for Scotland, a desire to belittle Scotland and not hear our voice.

"And if you don't believe me on this just listen to what Mark Drakeford, the Labour first minister of Wales, says - he says exactly the same thing about how Wales is treated."

However MSP Murdo Fraser of the Scottish Conservatives said he would ignore Mr Swinney's "manufactured outrage" on the issue.

He told the BBC that while he was not sure of the whole context of Ms Truss' remarks, he believed she was referring to Nicola Sturgeon's "incessant and increasingly tiresome demands" for another referendum.

He said: "Liz Truss is far more in tune on Scottish opinion on this issue than Nicola Sturgeon. I think Liz Truss is absolutely right to say this is not the time for another referendum.

"There are other priorities the Scottish government should be focussing on - not least the NHS, the appalling rate of drugs deaths, trying to rebuild our economy post-Covid."

Ms Truss and Rishi Sunak are vying to win over Conservative Party members, whose votes will determine which of them will become the next Tory leader and British prime minister.

Nine Scottish Conservative MSPs, including Murdo Fraser, Rachael Hamilton, Liam Kerr and Oliver Mundell, declared their support for Liz Truss on Monday.

Meanwhile eight Conservative MSPs declared their support for Rishi Sunak in a joint letter in the Telegraph on Tuesday. They are Donald Cameron, Liz Smith, Miles Briggs, Jackson Carlaw, Maurice Golden, Jeremy Balfour, Dean Lockhart and Alexander Stewart. MPs John Lamont and Andrew Bowie have also backed Mr Sunak.

Welcome to the era of muscular unionism.

If, as expected, Liz Truss enters 10 Downing Street, it's clear she will ditch the cautious constitutional approach of the Johnson administration which addressed the issue of a second independence referendum by simply repeating the mantra: "now is not the time."

Ms Truss is adopting a far more robust attitude. It's not quite the "never, never, never!" with which Ulster's Ian Paisley denounced the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement but "no, no, no!" is not a million miles away from it.

This is already being cheered by staunch unionists who had been longing for more robust engagement, some of whom, not coincidentally, are currently deciding whether to vote for Ms Truss or Rishi Sunak as their leader.

Hours before her comments the Spectator's Stephen Daisley, for example, argued that the constitutional debate had become "a one-sided war, and one that Westminster is losing."

But there is a reason this approach — and particularly sharp personal attacks — was on the whole rejected by Boris Johnson and his team.

They feared that an all-out assault on Nicola Sturgeon would play directly into the Scottish government's hands as it would be cast as an attack not just on the first minister but on the nation which elected her.

It is true that polls suggest a majority of voters in Scotland are not keen on a referendum any time soon.

It is also true that last year voters in Scotland elected a majority of MSPs who had made manifesto commitments to hold another independence referendum - returning Ms Sturgeon as first minister in yet another landslide election victory in the process.

There is a fine line between insulting a political opponent you dislike and dismissing the people who voted for her, including those whose support you one day, presumably, hope to win for yourself.