THE Conservative Party conference kicked off today amid calls for the event to be cancelled as financial turmoil engulfs UK markets and Liz Truss’s (pictured) premiership risks being defined as an “unprecedented disaster”.
The event, held in Birmingham, lasts until Wednesday and begins with tributes to the late Queen, before speeches from Penny Mordaunt, the local Conservative mayor Andy Street, the chair of the Tory party Jake Berry, Douglas Ross and secretaries of state in Truss’s government.
The Prime Minister will not speak at the event until the final day and is likely to round off the conference on Wednesday.
The SNP and LibDems have both demanded party conference season be ended so Westminster can resume sitting as the reckless actions of the Chancellor spark havoc in financial markets – with some Tory MPs breaking cover to call on the Government to take a more cautious approach.
With fears mounting among homeowners that house prices will fall by as much as 10% in the next year, Yorkshire MP Julian Smith, the former Tory chief whip, called on the government to abandon plans to axe the top rate of income tax to “stabilise” markets.
The Scottish Greens have said the conference will be an “internal reckoning” for the Prime Minister who has faced enormous crises since taking office at the beginning of last month, which her critics say were self-inflicted and unforced errors.
West of Scotland MSP Ross Greer said: “The first few weeks of Liz Truss’s premiership have been an unprecedented disaster. It would be laughable if there weren’t so many people directly suffering as a consequence of her cruel and incompetent actions.
“This week’s Tory party conference will be an internal reckoning for the Prime Minister and her Chancellor.
“The dozens of Tory MPs anonymously briefing against them in the press will have the opportunity to break cover and publicly call for Truss to reverse course and undo the immense damage she is inflicting.
“This sorry episode has once again made clear that Westminster politics is thoroughly broken. Every day that Scotland’s economy sits in their hands is another day of spiralling prices for households and nationwide economic decline, absolutely none of which we voted for.”
Meanwhile, the LibDems are calling for the conference to be cancelled altogether. Its closing night live band karaoke event has been cancelled, with organisers blaming the impact of rail strikes the following day.
Party leader Ed Davey said: “There is no way the Conservative Party can hold their conference whilst the British economy nosedives.
“The arrogance of Liz Truss and Conservative ministers is frankly an insult to millions who now face higher bills as a direct result of last week’s budget.
“From this weekend they will abandon their posts in Downing Street, leaving a mess behind them and heading for the cocktail parties and mutual back-patting of the classic conference season.
“In one fell swoop, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng crashed the economy, trashed the pound and paved the way for record interest rate rises.
“Innocent mortgage borrowers will be left to pick up the bill of this gross incompetence. It is time parliament is recalled and new measures passed to save families and pensioners unable to cope with this mortgage crisis. This botched budget cannot survive any longer.”
The Alba Party’s Westminster leader Neale Hanvey said that Truss’s economic plan had shown the UK up as “not just broken politically and economically” but also “morally bankrupt”.
He added: “The economic, social and political stakes for Scotland could not be higher. Either we see our economy decline and our society fracture, even more than it already is, and sink to the bottom with the UK or we escape with independence.”
