Liz Truss blames 'trans activists' in civil service for sabotaging her premiership

Liz Truss blames 'trans activists' in civil service for sabotaging her premiership

WATCH: Health Secretary suggests Liz Truss is wrong to brand environmentalists as extremists

GB NEWS
Millie Cooke

By Millie Cooke


Published: 22/02/2024

- 15:01

Truss said she faced 'backlash' from the 'state itself', pointing the finger of blame at the Civil Service

Liz Truss has claimed "trans activists" and "environmental activists" filled the ranks of the Civil Service, accusing them of sabotaging her premiership.

Speaking in the Washington suburbs at a major US political conference, Truss said she faced "huge establishment backlash" during her time as Prime minister - which lasted just 49 days.



She said the backlash came especially from the "state itself", pointing the finger of blame at the Civil Service.

The conference will be headlined by Donald Trump, alongside appearances from Nigel Farage and Steve Bannon.

Truss

Liz Truss has claimed "trans activists" and "environmental activists" filled the ranks of the Civil Service,

PA

Speaking at a panel discussion on Wednesday evening, Truss said: "What has happened in Britain over the past 30 years, is power that used to be in the hands of politicians has been moved to quangos and bureaucrats and lawyers.

"So what you find is you find a democratically elected government actually unable to enact policies.

"In America, you call it the administrative state or the deep state, well, we have more than 500 of these quangos in Britain, and they run everything.

"We’ve got the Environment Agency, we’ve got the Office of Budget Responsibility, we’ve got the Bank of England, we’ve got the Judicial Appointments Commission.”

Truss claimed the UK has a "major problem with our administrative bureaucracy”, adding: “and I think it’s got a lot worse”.

The former PM continued: "Now people are joining the Civil Service who are essentially activists, they might be trans activists, they might be environmental extremists, but they are now having a voice within the Civil Service in a way I don’t think was true 30 or 40 years ago, so we just have a wholly new problem."


She blamed Tony Blair for eliminating the Lord Chancellor's role as head of the judiciary and instituting a British Supreme Court.

She explained: "He got rid of the traditional role of the Lord Chancellor, who sat in the cabinet and was the head of the judiciary he instead put control of appointments in the hands of a quango. So what you have is rather than democratically elected politicians being accountable for decisions, often those decisions are now in the hands of people who aren't elected."

Truss, who was forced to resign after her mini-budget sent the markets into free fall, said: "I think that's the issue we now face as conservatives, is it's not enough just to will conservative policies and say, we want to control our borders or we want to cut taxes, or we want to reform our welfare system.

Truss

Speaking in the Washington suburbs at a major US political conference, Truss said she faced "huge establishment backlash" during her time as PM

PA

"Because we have a whole group of people now in Britain with a vested interest in the status quo, who actually have a lot of power and power has been taken away from democratically elected politicians.

"And it now sits in the hands of bureaucrats. And people don't want to admit that no minister wants to admit that they can't actually do things.

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"And I think that has become a big problem in Britain."

She also said that any future Conservative PM should be "prepared to be unpopular at London dinner parties" by taking on the Civil Service and individuals who "work in big corporates".

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