YESTERDAY PM Theresa May set out her ‘vision for Britain after Brexit’ in a key note speech to their party conference in Birmingham in which she masqueraded the Tory party as the party for ‘ordinary working class people’.
After seven years of permanent austerity plunging working class and middle class families into deep poverty, she said: ‘Let us take this opportunity to show that we, the Conservative Party, truly are the party of the workers… the party of public servants… the party of the NHS.’
She then went on to heap praise on the man who for the last year has launched war on the junior doctors – health secretary Jeremy Hunt. May said: ‘But also to one man – Jeremy Hunt – who is one of the most passionate advocates for patients and for the doctors, nurses and others who work in our health service that I have ever known.’
Dr Mark Porter, chair of BMA council, said: ‘There is a real disconnect between the rhetoric of Theresa May’s speech, and the reality facing the NHS. The prime minister’s speech failed to mention anything on the funding crisis engulfing the NHS.’
Later in her speech, May set out a ‘responsible capitalism’ agenda. She said the government would ‘go after’ businesses that disregarded paying tax. On the question of defence, the wolf in sheep’s clothing act was temporarily dropped. After Tory legislation was announced to make UK troops exempt from human rights law, she said: ‘We will never again – in any future conflict – let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave – the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces.’
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of civil servants union PCS, said: ‘Theresa May seems to have forgotten she was a senior member of the cabinet for the last six years while our economy and housebuilding stalled, wages slumped and zero-hours contracts soared. The rhetoric on fairness rings hollow, as she is presiding over the most divisive and disgusting attack on migrant workers that we have seen for decades.’
Dave Wiltshire, secretary of the All Trade Union Alliance (ATUA) commented: ‘May’s speech is an expression of weakness. So fearful are the Tories of the Brexit revolt and the way it will continue under conditions of worsening economic crisis and the developing banking crash that they are now putting forward the charade that they are the “workers’ party”.
‘This is a government which is split and divided, the situation has gone completely out of their control. They are peddling the same programme as ex-Labour leader Miliband and they are trying to get support of the TUC and extending a hand to the Blairites.
‘The Tories have not changed, the political situation has.
‘Workers up and down the country will be angry at her charade of the “workers’ party”.
‘Meanwhile, May was home secretary in a Cameron government which brought in the latest draconian anti-trade union legislation.
‘Despite this, the leader of the TUC, Frances O’Grady is on record as saying she is prepared to roll up her sleeves and work hand-in-hand with Theresa May. May is hoping that the Labour Party/Blairite MPs will react in a similar fashion.’
