Is Liz Truss trying to rebrand as a US right-wing darling?

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Nearly 18 months in the past, Liz Truss was the UK Prime Minister and chief of the Conservative Party, with the authority to direct the actions of Her Majesty’s Government and even to unleash the United Kingdom’s retailer of nuclear-tipped Trident missiles.

But on Thursday, standing earlier than a half-empty ballroom at a Washington DC-area lodge and conference centre, she reduce a far much less spectacular determine.

Ms Truss is showing on the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual right-wing confab as soon as residence to conservative and libertarian stalwarts such as Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney however which, in recent times, has morphed into a Trumpian pep rally.

To that finish, she made her CPAC debut at a hastily-arranged “international summit” alongside Nigel Farage, the ex-UKIP MEP and former Brexit Party chief who has spent increasingly of his time since Brexit centered on boosting Donald Trump’s effort to return to the White House.

Mr Farage has lengthy been a darling of the American far-right and a CPAC common. But Ms Truss’ look on the gathering seems a part of a new offensive meant to give her a base of help within the US and new allies within the populist, antidemocratic milieu inhabited by Mr Trump, Mr Farage, and different authoritarian-friendly gadflies such as ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

To that finish, she peppered her remarks on Wednesday — and a second speech in the principle CPAC ballroom on Thursday — with assaults on unelected civil servants and non-governmental businesses who she blamed for her time in Number 10 coming to a disastrous finish after simply 49 days. (She was infamously outlasted by a lettuce.)

She informed attendees that the “most almighty backlash” she confronted after the catastrophic response to her 2022 mini-budget – which despatched the pound into a nostril dive and sparked a crash within the markets – got here each from the “usual suspects” in each media and the company world, as properly as authorities, the Office of Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England.

Ms Truss additionally levelled partisan assaults on the sitting American president, accusing Mr Biden of being “asleep at the wheel” and “projecting weakness” from the White House, whereas additionally accusing him of enjoying a half in her ouster and having “intervened to have a go at my policies”.

“Can you imagine being attacked on your economic policies by the inventor of Bidenomics? Talk about offensive,” she mentioned.

Her feedback about Mr Bide, which parroted the right-wing speaking factors of the string of MAGA audio system on the occasion, drew some applause – whereas her diatribes in regards to the British civil service fell flat.

Whether Ms Truss’ makes an attempt to remake herself as a right-wing celeb will succeed is anybody’s guess.

When The Independent sought to survey CPAC attendees on their reactions to her remarks, Americans appeared destructive – or worse, detached – in the direction of the previous PM.

One MAGA hat-wearing attendee — who declined to give his identify — referred to as her a “secret globalist” and “bad news,” citing her prior opposition to Brexit.

“She was against it and she flipped,” he mentioned, earlier than strolling rapidly away.

Another Mr Trump fan sporting a scholar ticket to the convention and the compulsory pink hat informed The Independent Ms Truss was “a loser” and mentioned he wasn’t certain why she was there.

But Jamile Davies, a global attendee who had travelled all the way in which from Wales, thought the previous prime minister had made a good impression on the American crowd.

“I do believe that she has all the right words and the good intentions. And she was not given the opportunity to act on them or … much support from the Conservative Party,” she mentioned, including that Ms Truss most probably got here to the US as a result of “the British public’s just fed up of good words and very little actions”.