Liz Truss, the former British prime minister, has claimed the left is winning “the argument” and called for the defunding of public broadcasters to help win it back during a speech at the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference.
About 1,000 people at the CPAC conference in Brisbane also heard the former Conservative party leader blame the “unelected Bank of England” for a financial crisis which contributed to her departure as prime minister after just 49 days, following her disastrous mini-budget.
“The failings of the unelected Bank of England… were blamed on me, and our government was forced out of office,” she said on Saturday.
Truss told the rightwing event that the left was “winning the argument” by rebranding “socialism” as “the environment”, “human rights” or “equality” – “but what they mean is they mean divisive identity politics”.
She also blamed “NGOs, bureaucrats, media”, along with universities and thinktanks, for undermining the conservative cause.
“Is it impossible, or I found it impossible, to deliver conservative policies with the current makeup of our bureaucracy?” she said.
The biggest cheer of her 22-minute speech came when she called for defunding “state media”.
“We need to be prepared to dismantle the left-wing bureaucracy,” she said.
“We need to be prepared to defund state media.
“I’m not sure which is worse, the BBC or ABC; I’ve been on both of them and they’re both pretty bad.”
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Truss said that while many were campaigning against conservatives, “the public” was on their side.
In July she lost her seat of South West Norfolk at the general election. Her party had previously held the seat for 60 years.
During the year, she has appeared at conservative events in the US and UK, including one organised by a new political organisation called Popular Conservatism she co-founded in February.
Truss’s headliner speech, Ten Days to Save the West, shares a title with her political memoir, published in April, before her shock loss.
But those in the audience couldn’t buy a copy, with none on sale at the event’s bookstand.
The event also featured Australian senators Alex Antic and Bridget McKenzie, Barnaby Joyce, and former Queensland premier Campbell Newman.
Audience members said they had travelled from as far as Canberra to hear the former UK prime minister.