TORY leadership hopeful Liz Truss has previously said she backed referendums on “major constitutional issues”, putting pressure on her opposition to indyref2, The National can reveal.
In a recently resurfaced video of her speech at a LibDems conference when she was a member of that party, the Foreign Secretary – now bookies’ favourite to be the next Prime Minister – said she did not believe “people should put up and shut up about decision that affect their everyday lives”.
Truss has previously said she would continue the current opposition of the UK Government to a second referendum on Scotland’s future.
The Foreign Secretary – who was revealed yesterday to have racked up a bill of £500,000 in taxpayer-funded flights in just three months last year – has been accused of inconsistency, having previously switched political parties and her position on Brexit.
The SNP said Truss had “more faces than the town hall clock”.
The video, which resurfaced as the MP made it to the final stages of the Tory leadership contest, shows a 19-year-old Truss (below) speaking in favour of a referendum on abolishing the monarchy.
Speaking at the LibDems conference in 1994, she said: “We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all.
“We believe in fairness, common sense. We believe in referenda on major constitutional issues.
“We do not believe that people should be born to rule, or that they should put up and shut up about decisions that affect their everyday lives.”
Urging her party colleagues to back her, she asked: “Do you, conference, believe that? Do you?”
Truss has come under intense scrutiny since reaching the final stage of the vote, which will conclude when Tory members’ votes are counted on September 5.
Once a committed Remainer, she said yesterday she had been a “reluctant Remainer” and was now fully convinced of the Brexit cause.
In a bruising 2019 interview with LBC on her newfound backing of a hard Brexit, Truss was confronted as having changed her mind on the issue as she ruled out a second vote on the European question.
When it was pointed out she had changed her mind on the matter, she replied: “I have, that’s true. In the other way though.”
Her opponent Rishi Sunak (above), who enjoyed the most support among MPs, is taking a beating in the polls, with a new YouGov survey showing he received support of just 38% of the party membership versus Truss’s 62%, excluding undecideds.
Sunak, who has been marked by a series of scandals which have torpedoed his approval ratings, was fined £50 for attending an illegal party in Downing Street during lockdown and was embarrassed when his wife’s legal but controversial tax avoidance arrangements were made public.
Truss has said she would seek to borrow more to pay for her programme of tax cuts, which Sunak has ruled out, dismissing her plans as “fairy-tale” economics.
Rona Mackay, the SNP MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, said: “Liz Truss has more faces than the town hall clock. She was a LibDem, now she is a hard-line Tory. She was a Remainer, now she is a Brexit zealot. And at one point she even claimed to be a democrat but now she blatantly denies Scotland our democratic choice because it plays to the galleries in the Tory party.
“She is the classic example of ‘I have my principles but if you don’t like them, I have other ones.’ Liz Truss is so untrustworthy she would deny she is Liz Truss if she thought there was an extra vote in it for her.
“The reality is that Truss and Sunak both know their position on a referendum is deeply flawed and unsustainable because the people of Scotland voted for one last year and Sunak previously admitted there should be one after Brexit.”
The National approached Truss’s team for comment.
