SCOTLAND is about to “call a day” to “being ignored by Tory prime minsters”, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Speaking at an event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland’s First Minister said unpopular Tory leaders were one of the reasons Scotland would leave the Union.
The SNP leader said Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss’s vow to “ignore” her if she becomes PM was not just an insult to her, but to Scotland too.
The comments, Sturgeon said, meant Truss was “effectively ignoring” the will of the Scottish people.
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The First Minister made the comments during a panel discussion hosted by Times Radio presenter Ayesha Hazarika. She was joined by political comedians Rosie Holt and Geoff Norcott.
Asked who she wanted to win between Truss and Rishi Sunak, Sturgeon said “it wasn’t about that”.
She continued: “None of them would win an election in Scotland.
“What do Margaret Thatcher, John Major, David Cameron, Theresa May, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss – all of them – have in common? They would never win an election in Scotland.
“I feel sorry for people in England a lot of the time because their choices are terrible.
“You’ve got the Tory leadership debacle and then you’ve got Keir Starmer who seems to be determined to be a pale imitation of the Tories and trying to out-Brexit the Tories, not prepared to stand up and actually be anything or believe in anything.
“That’s really tough but at least people in England voted for this nonsense. People in Scotland don’t.
“We are stuck with it regardless of how we vote and that’s one of the many reasons why Scotland should be independent and one of the reasons why I think we will be.”
Asked about Truss’s “attention seeking” remark about her, Sturgeon said: “I just think it’s a bit silly. Firstly, attention seeking, and I think Liz probably does know this, is part of your job as a politician.
“You kind of have to get attention for your policies and things you stand for and believe.
“But calling me an attention seeker, that’s her view and I can give as good as I get, she should probably just be warned about that in advance.
“But the more serious comment that I should be ignored, you know there’s people in my family that have been saying that for years, it’s not new,” she joked.
Sturgeon said while some people may dislike her, she was voted in as Scotland’s leader after the SNP became the country’s biggest party.
She continued: “But I am the democratically elected First Minister of Scotland and you can only be in that position if significant numbers of people in Scotland do vote for you.
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“So when she said that she thinks I should be ignored, I think what a lot of people in Scotland hear, is that she is saying the democratic votes and choices of Scotland should be ignored and effectively the country should be ignored - and I don’t think that is appropriate.
“I think you’ll find the people in Scotland are getting increasingly tired and impatient and fed up of being ignored by Conservatives prime ministers and we’re about to I think call a day to it.”
Truss caused outrage after her comments on “ignoring” the FM and labelling her an “attention seeker”.
While her campaign team later backtracked on the comments, saying she would work with the Scottish Government, Truss doubled down on them at another leadership hustings.
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