Jacob Rees-Mogg interrupted by stage invader jibing about ‘fascism’ as he addresses National Conservatism event – with ex-Cabinet minister telling protester he can ‘have his national loonies conference next week’
- Ex-business secretary is among a number of senior Tories to address the event
Jacob Rees-Mogg has been forced to deal with a stage invader jibing about ‘fascism’ during his speech to the National Conservatism conference in Westminster.
The former Cabinet minister’s address was interrupted by the protester shortly after he began speaking this morning.
The man, dressed in a shirt, tie and blazer, joined Mr Rees-Mogg at the lectern and told the audience: ‘I would like to draw your attention to a few characteristics of fascism.’
He was then bundled off the stage by a collection of men in suits as the audience booed, with one shouting: ‘Get back to work!’
Mr Rees-Mogg is among a series of speakers on the Right of the Conservative Party who are appearing at the three-day National Conservatism conference.
He quickly shrugged off the interruption, telling the event at London’s Emmanuel Centre: ‘Well there we go, our jolly good fellow has had to leave.
‘We believe in freedom of speech, so he can have his national loonies conference next week and he can see how many people he gets to come along.’
Jacob Rees-Mogg was forced to deal with a stage invader jibing about ‘fascism’ during his speech to the National Conservatism conference in Westminster
The man, dressed in a shirt, tie and blazer, joined Mr Rees-Mogg at the lectern and told the audience: ‘I would like to draw your attention to a few characteristics of fascism.’
He was then bundled off the stage by a collection of men in suits as the audience booed, with one shouting: ‘Get back to work!’
Mr Rees-Mogg shrugged off the interruption and swiftly resumed his speech, during which he continued his attack on the PM for scaling back plans to scrap thousands of leftover EU laws
The former business secretary also appeared to lash out at the Government’s introduction of voter ID for this year’s local elections in England
Mr Rees-Mogg then used his address to continue his attack on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for scaling back plans to scrap thousands of leftover EU laws by the end of this year.
The former business secretary claimed the repeal so far of retained Brussels legislation was ‘pathetically under-ambitious’.
He branded it ‘very unfortunate’ that Mr Sunak had breached a pledge to scrub all remaining EU laws from the UK’s statute book by the end of December.
‘The surrender to the blob risks exposing the Government to ridicule,’ he added.
Mr Rees-Mogg also appeared to lash out at the Government’s introduction of voter ID for this year’s local elections in England.
‘Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections,’ he said.
‘We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well.’
It comes after Labour plans to give millions of EU nationals, as well as 16 and 17-year-olds, a vote in UK general elections were revealed.
Tories have angrily accused Sir Keir Starmer of ‘laying the groundwork for a referendum to rejoin the EU’ with his proposal to significantly wider the voting franchise.
As a minister, Mr Rees-Mogg defended the introduction of voter ID in Parliament.
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