Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has been branded a "fool" at a Labour Party Conference fringe event as the country sits on the precipice of an "urgent" economic crisis.
Earlier today, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool that Liz Truss and her new Chancellor were behaving in a "desperate and out of control" manner following the shock mini-budget on Friday. Since Mr Kwarteng's 'fiscal event' announcement, which included a £45 billion package of tax cuts and a reversal of the cap on bankers' bonuses, the pound has plummeted to a record low against the dollar.
Speaking at a conference fringe event today, political journalist Will Hutton slammed the Chancellor and said the people of Britain are now "living through an extroadinary emergency". Mr Hutton said: “He was going to show that Rishi Sunak was a socialist. He was going to rebut the idea that he and Liz Truss lived in a fairytale world.
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"Now he looks what he is: a clever idiot. A fool. A charlatan. And the pair of them may not be in office in six months time."
Mr Hutton's critiscim of Liz Truss' new cabinet was echoed by Labour MP and former cabinet member Hilary Benn. He said: "At a time when the government say they’d like economic growth, the policy they have assumed is having the opposite effect but they’re in denial."
Today's fringe event sought to explore the the role Brexit has had to play in the current cost-of-living crisis, and Mr Benn conceded that, while he's a "passionate remainer", Labour has to be realistic about the situation the country is in and forge positive relations to ensure the country can still access European markets.
He said: “There are some people saying we should just fight the next election saying we’ll take Britain back into the European Union. Firstly, who says the EU wants us back? We can’t have a yo-yo membership as an institution, that causes pain on both sides."
He added: "I don’t meet many people who say 'let's have another referendum on an issue that divided the country so recently.'"
Anna Bird, the CEO of European Movement UK, acknowledged that Brexit is not the fundamental cause of the cost-of-living crisis, but it is a contributing factor to what is now a "very real" crisis. She said: "Brexit is a double whammy. Prices are going up while the economy is stagnating and may soon start shrinking.
"Brexit is not right now the biggest factor in rising energy bills, but Brexit true believers have declared an economic war on ordinary Britons just when we can least afford it. The majority of people think Brexit was bad idea.
"The public can can now see with their own eyes and feel in their own pockets that the Brexit promises were a lie. All of us who share European values have to unite because we’re faced with a very real, very immediate very urgent crisis."
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