In a scathing assessment from a former veterans’ minister, Prime Minister Liz Truss was charged of ‘urinating all over’ a vow to help Britain’s retiring military heroes.
During a Facebook live session with his Plymouth constituents last night, Johnny Mercer criticized the under-fire PM in the latest “blue-on-blue” episode to tarnish the Conservative Party.
When Ms Truss assumed office last month, Mr. Mercer was fired from his position in government. He also criticized some of his ‘utterly deluded’ Tory colleagues who declared their intention to run for prime minister.
And when he addressed his supporters, the former Army commander renewed his call for the UK to do more to help its veteran population, saying, “With Liz, I don’t believe she recognized what she was doing.” Nobody, I believe, is aware of how the government’s veterans affairs structure works.
His remarks came only hours after Ms. Truss’s maiden statement as Tory leader at the Conservative Party Conference and before his appearance on the third episode of the reality television series Make Me Prime Minister on Tuesday on Channel 4.
The 41-year-old father of three made the case during Mr. Mercer’s 55-minute live broadcast on Wednesday night that the post of veterans’ minister ought to be elevated to the cabinet, as it was during Boris Johnson’s leadership, rather than remaining a subordinate ministerial position.
The Plymouth Moor View MP said: “It’s quite irritating because politicians talk about veterans all the time, but they truly do, they really want to understand how the system works, and I’m not sure what it feels like to be a veteran.”
“While we made enormous progress and I did accomplish it, it wasn’t lasting,” he said. The issue is that. We need to keep running our campaign, in my opinion. My disappointment with the Prime Minister’s decision to urinate all over it stems from the fact that I believe it to be extremely significant and that it has altered many lives.
On July 28, 2019, Mr. Johnson named Mr. Mercer as the minister of veterans’ affairs. The UK opened its Office for Veterans’ Affairs three months later.
Mr. Mercer claimed that the office had “achieved great things since its conception” and that a “bold strategy” had been established to “improve” veteran healthcare, employment opportunities, and access to digital services in an open letter to veterans and their families published in July of this year.
Speaking last night, however, a Conservative MP expressed concern that this advancement might be halted and insisted that the UK “cannot continue to be the only country out of our peer nations”—including America, Australia, and New Zealand—that “doesn’t have a cabinet minister for veterans’ affairs.”
We can’t be the only nation that does it endlessly, he said.
Mr. Mercer criticized the government’s veteran policy and attacked other Conservative MPs who entered the race to head the party, some of whom, like Home Secretary Suella Braverman, are now members of Ms. Truss’s senior staff.
Some of the candidates, he claimed, “suffer from some pretty severe delusion, and it’s hard to believe that these people think they could be Prime Minister… Some of these candidates are utterly deluded, and that’s the only reason I would put myself forward because I think that actually I could do a better job.”
I believe you have to genuinely want it, and that’s an issue for me. But I don’t want to, no.
Mr. Mercer has been outspoken about his opinions on the current Downing Street leadership.
Following his dismissal last month, the Plymouth Moor View MP said in a Facebook post on Monday that the “recent turn of events” had been “surprisingly difficult to cope with than I thought.”
Of course, I have an opinion on what the government is doing, and you can probably guess what it is, he said.
I won’t accept budgets like the one we saw last week, as you are aware.
“It is difficult to see these very comical people posing as Government officials flailing about in the media,” one observer said.
And his outspoken wife, Felicity Cornelius-Mercer, has been just as vociferous, criticizing Ms. Truss, likening her to Beaker from the Muppets, and labeling the Prime Minister a “imbecile” when her husband was fired.
After her husband was fired from the cabinet after less than two months in the position he helped create, she said that the system “stinks” and “treats people appallingly.”
Additionally, she has been leading an online petition calling for the reinstatement of the cabinet position of minister for veterans.
The Prime Minister called tonight, immediately after an afternoon of FA Cup football and England rugby, but Johnny was so buzzed he can’t recall what was said, Mrs. Cornelius-Mercer tweeted. This caused her to come under fire.
After his wife received criticism for publishing the tweet, Mr. Mercer defended her.
“She’s with me on this crazy trip, experiencing the highs and many lows.” She is more than allowed to humiliate me, the PM, or anybody she chooses, he commented online.
In order to “harness the best of British innovation and to speed the development of health and wellness treatments and interventions for veterans,” the government announced the £5 million Veterans’ Health Innovation Fund in January.
Later this year, ministers are anticipated to choose which initiative to assist as part of this.
The Ministry of Defence has been contacted by MailOnline for comment about its future plans to assist veterans.