Two Greenpeace environmental activists disrupted a speech by Prime Minister Liz Truss to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Wednesday.
Greenpeace UK head of public affairs Rebecca Newsom and policy officer Ami McCarthy infiltrated the conference on Wednesday to protest at the government's decision to lift the moratorium on fracking for subterranean gas deposits — a response to the energy crisis caused by sanctions on Russia.
The two stood up and unfurled a banner reading: "Who voted for this" as the Truss, appointed PM in early September, following an internal party leadership contest, began her keynote address.
Delegates booed and shouted "out, out out," and one snatched the banner away, but the women produced a spare.
"Let's get them removed," the PM said as security guards moved in to usher the protesters out.
"Later on in my speech, I’m going to talk about the anti-growth coalition. I think they arrived a bit too early," Truss quipped minutes later.
"In a healthy democracy, people should get the government programme they voted for, but Liz Truss is putting most of it through the shredder," Newsom said in a statement released after the stunt.
"People voted for strong action on climate, a fracking moratorium, world-leading environmental protections, and tackling poverty and inequality," the Greenpeace official said. "What they’re getting instead is fracking, a potential bonfire of rules on wildlife and nature protection, and now the prospect of benefit cuts."
Former PM Boris Johnson pledged to pursue a "net zero" policy on fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions at the 2019 general election — which was dominated by the issue of the UK's exit from the European Union.
He also introduced legislation to ban the export of live animals, a policy his animal welfare and green activist wife Carrie is said to have championed.
Johnson and with then-foreign secretary Truss were the some of the most vocal supporters of US-led sanctions and fuel import embargoes on Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine. Johnson personally persuaded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off peace talks with Moscow in April.