Kemi Badenoch’s speech honouring Margaret Thatcher was halted twice tonight amid protests by eco-campaigners.
A group called Climate Resistance said they were behind the disruption of the Tory leader’s address to a London audience.
They have started a campaign called ‘Abolish Billionaires’ and are demanding the super-rich are ‘taxed out of existence’.
The disruption occurred just seconds into Mrs Badenoch’s address to the Centre for Policy Studies think tank’s Margaret Thatcher conference at London’s Guildhall.
The Tory leader had just begun to speak when a woman holding an ‘Abolish Billionaires’ banner started to shout, which prompted groans from the audience.
She was soon ejected from the event, following which Mrs Badenoch quipped: ‘Today we honour Margaret Thatcher, clearly some are still quite terrified by her.’
At this point, another protester began to shout and was booed by fellow conference attendees.
The second woman appeared to shout about the cost-of-living crisis as she was ejected from the room.
At the event, which marked 50 years since Margaret Thatcher helped to set up the think tank, Mrs Badenoch was heard to say: ‘I hardly think Mrs Thatcher can be blamed for the cost-of-living crisis.’
She added: ‘It just goes to show that the Left still believe that she is to blame for everything that is going wrong in their lives.
‘And that is why it is so critical that all of us here honour Mrs Thatcher.
‘Not just as Britain’s first female prime minister, but as the leader who saved our country from that lot.’
With no further disruption to her address, Mrs Badenoch went on to draw parallels to Mrs Thatcher’s defence of the Falkland Islands and the current Labour Government ceding sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
‘Lady Thatcher didn’t just transform Britain at home, she re-established our country as a global power,’ Mrs Badenoch said.
‘Not just through economic revival – although she did that – but by standing firm in the world, protecting British interests and refusing to be bullied.
‘She understood a fundamental truth; a strong nation is clear about who its enemies are and what its interests are.
‘She knew that appeasement never works and weakness invites aggression.
‘Her decision to send a Naval fleet thousands of miles away to reclaim the Falkland Islands was risky.
‘Many in Whitehall advised against it, the UN wanted Britain to negotiate them away, others thought it wasn’t worth the fight.
‘But Mrs Thatcher knew what was at stake. The Falklands were British and when they were threatened she didn’t hesitate.
‘She stood up for our sovereignty, our people, and our global reputation. She didn’t talk, she acted.
‘Compare that to today. Labour is giving British territory away in the Chagos Islands.
‘Billions of taxpayers’ money will be wasted on appeasement, handing over land that is strategically vital, ignoring Chagossians who have proudly waved the Union Jack and proudly proclaimed loyalty to the crown.
‘The excuses we hear about UN court rulings and electromagnetic signals are nonsense. British territory is British territory.’
Following Mrs Badenoch’s speech, one of the protesters involved in the earlier disruption claimed the Tories had ‘allowed extreme wealth to be amassed by a tiny minority, fuelling climate crisis and poverty’.
‘We’re calling for a wealth tax we need to make the super rich pay to redistribute their money for public services and climate action,’ she added after refusing to give her name.
Speaking of the think tank event, marking the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, the protester said: ‘It’s just shameful that this event is exists. We should not be celebrating this person.
‘She put us on the path that we’re on right now to this mass inequality we’re seeing, the cost of living crisis, the housing crisis, the climate crisis, it’s all connected to her.’