Liz Truss was embroiled in a row on Tuesday after calling Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon an “attention seeker”.
The favourite in the Tory leadership contest sparked anger among Scottish nationalists after she told a hustings event with Conservative members in Exeter last night that “the best thing to do with Nicola Sturgeon is ignore her”.
The Scottish National Party’s Deputy First Minister John Swinney told the BBC today that “people in Scotland, whatever their politics, will be absolutely horrified by the obnoxious remarks that Liz Truss has made”.
He added: “The unionist campaigners suggest Scotland should be at the heart of the United Kingdom… how Scotland can be expected to be at the heart of the UK when the democratically elected leader of our country is, in the view of the person most likely to be the next prime minister of the UK, somebody that should be ignored is completely and utterly unacceptable.
“Liz Truss has fundamentally, with one, silly, intemperate intervention, fundamentally undermined the argument she tries to put forward: that Scotland, somehow, can be fairly and well treated at the heart of the United Kingdom.”
But Brexit minister Jacob Rees-Mogg doubled down on Ms Truss’s comments, insisting Ms Sturgeon was “always moaning”.
