LONDON —
British Conservative Liz Truss’s leadership campaign faced its first serious
peril Tuesday as she was forced into a policy U-turn and came under fierce fire
in Scotland, against the backdrop of a shrinking poll lead.
اضافة اعلان
The foreign secretary
was accused of insulting the government in Edinburgh after she alleged First
Minister Nicola Sturgeon was an “attention seeker” for agitating for Scottish
independence, and recommended to “ignore her”.
The provocative
remarks, delivered at a Tory member hustings in southwest England late Monday,
were denounced by the
Scottish National Party (SNP), which is pressing for a
second referendum on independence.
John Swinney,
Sturgeon’s deputy as first minister of Scotland, called the remarks “obnoxious”
and contrasted the roughly 200,000 Tory members with the 2.4 million votes the
SNP won in elections last year.
“Nicola Sturgeon
has far more democratic legitimacy than Liz Truss is going to have if she
becomes the prime minister,” he told BBC television.
“And I think Liz Truss has absolutely no right or
foundation to make these remarks,” Swinney said, arguing her “silly,
intemperate intervention” had made the case itself for Scotland to go its own
way.
Former finance
minister
Rishi Sunak, Truss’s rival in the race to succeed Prime Minister Boris
Johnson, has also ruled out another referendum, after Scots voted narrowly in
2014 to stay in the UK.
Last week, Sunak
called it “the wrong priority at the worst possible moment”.
But the SNP argues
that Brexit has transformed the constitutional debate, and wants to hold a
second plebiscite in October 2023.
The supreme court
in London plans to hold hearings on October 11–12 this year on whether that
would be legal without approval from the UK government, which by then will be
led by Truss or Sunak.
“Keeping the UK
together means confronting nationalism and beating them at the ballot box. Only
I have a plan to do this,” Sunak said, after winning the endorsement of 10
Scottish Conservative colleagues.
‘Wilful misrepresentation’
Truss, however, already has
the backing of big hitters in Johnson’s outgoing cabinet after initially
building a strong poll lead on her promises of immediate tax cuts to address a
cost-of-living crisis in Britain.
But as Tory members begin voting by post and online
this week, a new survey reported by The Times said her lead had narrowed from
more than 20 points to just five: 48 percent to 43 percent.
The result of the election is due on September 5.
Both candidates have been issuing daily pledges of
policy changes in a bid to turn a page on the Johnson government and address
Britons’ economic fears.
They have also been trying to curry favor with
right-wingers in the Tory rank and file.
Truss outlined the creation of “regional pay boards”
outside London for public-sector pay, rather than a uniform rate set
nationally, as part of a plan to wage “war on Whitehall waste”.
The plan could save £8.8 billion a year if it
covered “all public-sector workers in the long term”, her campaign said late
Monday.
That drew a storm of criticism from Tories in more
deprived regions of England, noting that all state workers would include
nurses, teachers and police officers already suffering from the spiral in
inflation.
Despite its clear language, a Truss campaign
spokesperson alleged Tuesday the plan had been subject to “willful
misrepresentation”, insisting in an apparent U-turn that there was no plot to
slash the pay of any public-sector workers.
Truss’s remarks about the leader of the UK’s
second-biggest nation meanwhile revived criticism that she lacks judgment, as
when encouraging Britons to fight in
Ukraine at the start of Russia’s invasion.
And many pointed to Truss’s own high profile on
social media and repeated invocation of Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative
premier throughout the 1980s, in photo opportunities such as when she posed
atop a tank.
Best-selling author Philip Pullman tweeted: “Has any
politician ever, anywhere, shown less self-awareness than Liz Truss calling
Nicola Sturgeon ‘attention-seeking’?”
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
