Liz Truss’s no-holds-barred approach to campaigning seems likely to put her into Downing Street. The betting is that she has built an unassailable lead in the Tory party leadership race. Her maverick boosterism seems to play better with party members than Rishi Sunak’s wonkery. However damaging her economic policies turn out to be, it may be her Little England politics that do the most harm. A poll this weekend showed Scotland is more likely to become independent if Ms Truss becomes prime minister. Her hard line on the Northern Ireland protocol has alienated nationalists and moderates in the province, which is on course to leave the UK within 20 years. Nationalists in Wales too would be boosted by a Truss premiership.
Of equal concern is English indifference to the fate of the union: more than four in 10 people would welcome or aren’t bothered by Scotland going its own way. A majority of English people are untroubled by the prospect of a united Ireland. This is down to the rightwing politics of Brexit, which was a revolt pitting England against itself. Ms Truss has played on this theme during the contest: by inveighing against the civil service; by opposing political unanimity; by reversing England’s historical tendency to look outwards rather than inwards. Ms Truss is playing with fire. She risks burning down the whole house. A Little Englander running a Little England is where her rhetoric leads.
The foreign secretary’s aggressive stance against the Scottish National party is unpopular north of the border. Most Scots understand that a Tory government in London will not have much in common with an SNP-run Holyrood. But they reasonably expect their democratic decisions to be respected. Boris Johnson was unpopular in Scotland, but he learned that Britain did not gain by squabbling with the SNP. The best way of preserving the union is to emphasise its benefits. Unfortunately, Ms Truss has gone out of her way to pick a fight with the SNP. She called the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, an “attention-seeker”, branded nationalists as separatists and unequivocally ruled out an independence vote.
Whoever becomes prime minister will be waiting for the supreme court to decide whether Ms Sturgeon can hold an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent. Most expect judges to rule against her. However, the SNP would then fight the next UK general election as a de facto referendum on Scottish independence. The polls are not looking good for rightwing unionism. The Tories risk a wipeout in Scotland. When it comes to Northern Ireland, Ms Truss told a Belfast hustings that she would not accept any compromises on a renegotiated protocol if it meant key demands were not met. A trade war with the EU would be bad for the UK, but it would be especially disruptive for Northern Ireland.
Ms Truss’s strategy is to win by appealing to the hearts of the Tory members rather than their heads. However, words once said cannot easily be swallowed. They can have a radicalising effect on activists and MPs. Things could fall apart rapidly. Divides are widening between London and the rest of England, between England and the other nations of the union, and between the young and the old. The foreign secretary, like Mr Johnson before her, gives the impression that English politicians can get away with ignoring or being insulting towards the other nations of the United Kingdom. By stoking fissiparous tendencies, Ms Truss makes it harder for the country to hold itself together.
