Liz Truss has found her people. The former Prime Minister, whose 45-day tenure in Downing Street remains a monument to ideological overreach, appeared last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, for the third year running.
The domestic speaking circuit, we assume, has not been quite so generous with invitations.
She did not waste the platform. Truss warned the audience that there is “still a deep state” in America and urged conservatives to “remove them” while they are in power, advice delivered, apparently without irony, by someone whose own government was effectively removed by the bond markets inside six weeks.
Appeasing Islamists
On Britain, she accused Keir Starmer’s government of wanting to “appease the Islamists,” claiming this explained why the UK had declined to offer bases for the US strikes against Iran.
The Prime Minister, she added darkly, did not know what side he was on; in fact, he might be “batting for the other side.”
Truss also found time to defend Lucy Connelly, imprisoned in 2024 for inciting racial hatred after posting calls on social media for a refugee hotel to be burned down, presenting this as evidence of a free speech crisis rather than a straightforward criminal matter of inciting people to burn down a mosque..
The headline announcement came when Truss revealed that the CPAC circus is coming to London: England will host a CPAC Great Britain event from 16 to 18 July this year. Tickets will go on sale imminently.
Britain, she told a diminutive Texas audience, needs a “Trump-style revolution”, or perhaps a “MEGA movement”: Make England Great Again.
Crashed the pound
She claimed that most British people did not agree with the current government; a bit rich, of course, coming from someone whose policies crashed the pound, torpedoed the gilt market, and drove mortgage rates up for millions of homeowners, all in under seven weeks.
Truss appeared on one of the smaller stages in the conference hall, part of a rotating cast of political personalities hosted two floors below the main stage.
So Britain’s self-appointed ambassador to MAGA was not on the main stage but on a secondary platform, amid the merchandise stalls and podcast studios, delivering her vision for a British revolution to a room whose primary function was selling Trump cigars and sequinned jackets.
Main stage
The broader conference, modestly billed as “the world’s largest and most influential” gathering of conservatives, was a much ore muted affair than its organisers might have hoped, and been in the past.
A year ago, Elon Musk wielded a chainsaw on stage and Trump declared his movement was thriving and dominating Washington.
This year the opening day unfolded under a cloud of angst: unease about the war with Iran, misgivings about the immigration crackdown, and a palpable fear of a growing enthusiasm gap with Democrats.
Neither Trump nor JD Vance appeared, a notable absence at a conference that has functioned for years as little more than an extended tribute act to its most famous alumnus. The gap showed. Seats remained empty in the conference hall, and speakers at times had to actively prompt the audience to engage.
The sharpest fault line ran through the US war with Iran. Matt Gaetz’s presence on the programme served as a visible reminder of conservative dissent on the military campaign, while Ted Cruz declared that Trump had been “exactly right to act to protect Americans.”
Frontlines
Steve Bannon, never one to miss an opportunity for theatre, hosted a session labelled “Peace Room,” arguing that it was conservatives’ children who would end up on the frontlines.
On the conference floor, a group of Iranian and Persian attendees chanted “Regime change for Iran,” adding a note of unrehearsed chaos to proceedings.
Reliable barometer
CPAC has long served as a reliable barometer of the transatlantic hard right. On this year’s evidence, the American movement is more divided, more anxious, and emptier of seats than it would like to admit, and CPAC itself is being supplanted by the more confident, virulent Turning Point USA
But Britain’s most dedicated ambassador to this particular world is apparently so committed to the cause that she is bringing it home to London in July.
Searchlight will be there.
