Senior Scottish Tories fear that Liz Truss’s “red meat” attacks on Nicola Sturgeon as an attention-seeker will alienate moderate voters, as Truss prepares to face Rishi Sunak in Perth [see footnote].
The lengthy contest to succeed Boris Johnson as UK Conservative leader and next prime minister enters its final phase on Tuesday with their only party hustings in Scotland; the Tories chose Perth, a city once seen as a Tory stronghold.
Both candidates will be challenged on the escalating cost of living crisis and soaring energy bills, and the absence of urgent action from the UK government. But a third pressing question is likely to dominate this event: whether Truss was right earlier in the campaign to dismiss Scotland’s first minister by saying she should be “ignored”.
Senior figures in both Sunak and Truss’s camps agree it was a mis-step. It suggested Truss, the clear favourite to win, had adopted a “muscular unionism” approach to Sturgeon’s nationalist government. It undermined a subtler strategy devised by Michael Gove to promote the perceived benefits of the union quietly, by putting UK government money into roads, community projects and infrastructure, sidestepping the devolved Scottish government.
A key figure in Sunak’s team said Truss’s remarks, and her disastrous suggestion that public sector payrates could be cut in northern regions, alienated Tory councillors in his constituency, who had switched support from Truss to the former chancellor.
But more seriously, Sunak’s ally said, her remarks in Exeter showed a “deep misunderstanding” of the need to persuade moderate unionists and uncommitted yes voters to support the union, in a future referendum.
“She’s probably going to win this [so] why did she pander to that extreme position when it’s going to create further difficulties for her down the line? Rather than just say, ‘I need to be a stateswoman’ instead of just throwing red meat to the ultras,” he said.
Truss supporters in Scotland acknowledge they have advised her to adopt a less belligerent tone against Sturgeon: they insist Truss will follow Gove’s softly-softly strategy.
“Those remarks were totally over-interpreted,” said one key ally. “To me it was just a throw-away line at a hustings for a party audience. I don’t believe we will see a major shift in approach to Scotland. The emphasis will be on raising the profile of the UK government and on direct investment, which I think is very clever politics.”
And like Theresa May and Boris Johnson, both Sunak and Truss have refused to authorise Sturgeon’s request for Westminster to authorise a fresh independence referendum. “On that big ticket issue, there isn’t going to be any change,” said one Truss ally.
Sunak and Truss will be bidding for the votes of more than 10,000 Scottish Tory members on Tuesday evening. That figure is an unofficial estimate since the party refuses to disclose its exact membership total in Scotland.
Far more controlled now in their policy pitches after a series of gaffes and u-turns on both sides, the candidates made carefully-choreographed campaign visits to the north east of Scotland – now the Tories’ Scottish powerbase.
Despite the steady leaching away of support during Johnson’s leadership – losing seven of its 13 Westminster seats in the 2019 general election, the Tories held on in much of the north east, retaining many more Holyrood seats in the region in 2021.
Sunak visited Inverurie and was reportedly due to have an off-camera visit to meet fishermen; Truss went to “tap a barrel” at a whisky distillery in Speyside, before holding a private party event in Aberdeen.
Both candidates announced plans to strengthen parliamentary accountability over the Scottish government. Sunak said Scotland’s permanent secretary should be required to appear before MPs in London; Truss said MSPs would be given parliamentary privilege similar to the legal immunity for MPs, to allow them to more robustly challenge Scottish ministers.
The whisky visit has symbolic resonance for Truss. Her gaffe in Exeter aside, her supporters argue Truss has a proven track-record of investing in Scotland. At the Department for International Trade and the Foreign Office she has increased the civil service presence in Scotland, and helped broker a cut in US import tariffs on Scotch whisky.
John Lamont MP, the coordinator of Sunak’s Scottish campaign, said Sunak’s appeal went far wider than civil servants and distillers. He was “quick footed” on delivering the furlough and business support during the pandemic; that helped everyone. “With the cost of living crisis, he gets and understands what’s required. It is critical for me he comprehends what’s needed across the UK,” Lamont said.
David Mundell MP, the former Scottish secretary who will introduce Truss at the Perth hustings, said: “I’m supporting her because I know her commitment to the union: she spent part of her childhood here in Scotland and understands the issues within Scotland and its place in the UK. She’s not just an enthusiastic unionist, I think she’s a bold one.”
In Scotland, the Tories are walking a tight-rope on energy policy. Talk of a windfall tax on energy companies plays badly in north east Scotland, which has grown rich on Aberdeen’s North Sea oil firms and is now where the Tories are at their strongest.
Mundell said that Truss will have an immediate advantage: neither will be Boris Johnson. Although his premiership did not, as many Tories feared, produce a sustained surge in support for independence, it did deeply damage the party’s standing.
“What she brings to things is she’s not Boris Johnson, and that’s what I think is the most important thing. We’re not going to have a double referendum on Boris Johnson and on independence. She’ll be less divisive and off-putting for middle ground Scottish voters.”
• This article was originally published on 16 August 2022. It has been relaunched after inadvertently being removed from the site.
