Penny Mordaunt has repeated her notorious false claim that the UK was unable to stop Turkey joining the EU – insisting the veto would not have been used.
The Tory leadership contender, who also faces accusations of dishonesty over her stance on trans rights, was accused of ignoring “actual facts” that the EU treaty granted a block on new members.
Confronted with an interview from the 2016 Brexit referendum – when the Leave campaign was seeking to stir up alarm about migrants from Turkey – Ms Mordaunt replied: “The clip says it as I see it.”
On the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, it was pointed out to the favourite candidate of Tory members that Article 49 of the EU treaty granted a veto on any country joining the bloc.
But she argued the crucial factor was David Cameron’s signal to Turkey that he wanted the country to join, claiming: “The British people did not have a say.”
Ms Mordaunt said: “David Cameron had given undertakings to Turkey that the United Kingdom would support its accession to the EU.
“Just because there’s a provision in a treaty doesn’t mean that the UK could ever have used that.
“And to have gone back on what was government policy in those undertakings he has given to Turkey – a key NATO ally – would have been crazy.”
However, Mr Cameron had said publicly that he believed Turkish accession to the EU was decades away, rather than a possibility in the near future.
It is believed he had suggested he would not trigger the UK’s veto to avoid a backlash from the country with security implications – while also knowing another EU country would use theirs.
In the interview, Ms Mordaunt also dismissed claims that she attempted to push through a change to allow people to change gender without a medical diagnosis as “smears”.
“This has been rebutted many times. We all know what is going on. This is the type of toxic politics people want to get away from,” she said.
“We did a consultation. We asked healthcare professionals what they thought about the situation. That is the section I looked after. I managed that consultation. We didn’t actually, on my shift, produce a policy.”
Ms Mordaunt also described her proposals to halve VAT on petrol and raise tax thresholds as “modest” changes – in contrast to some of her rivals’ dramatic tax-slashing plans.
“We need to demonstrate that there is some immediate targeted support going to people. We would have to adjust our tax forecasts, but this is absolutely necessary,” she said.
She admitted borrowing for day-to-day spending would have to rise, saying: “We will have to do that for some time. The important thing is that debt [to GDP] ratio will fall over time.”
