A former Conservative Party chairman has said the party is now a shell of what it once was in a blistering Question Time appearance.
Lord Chris Patten took aim at the right-wing influence seeping through in the party typified by the National Conservatism Conference, which saw a range of dangerously extreme ideologies given a platform.
He said: “You refer to the fact that in the past I was the Chairman of the Conservative party. I was the Chair of the Conservative party when there was one.
“I don’t find I have very much in common with the flat earthers on the right of the party.”
Elsewhere on the show Lord Patten unleashed a scathing attack on Brexit as he conceded the UK economy is in ”one hell of a mess”.
“Our GDP per capita now is less than not only France, Germany, the Netherlands, it’s lower than Ireland.
“It’s lower for heaven’s sake than Lithuania. The poorest 20 per cent in Britain are poorer than the poorest 20 per cent in Poland. That is not the sign of a country which has things going for it.”
Patten went on to point to comments made by Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, who said Britain is in a much worse position than others.
Watch his comments in full below:
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