A BASINGSTOKE Conservative borough councillor reportedly berated MP Michael Gove at the party’s conference, accusing him of making “unsettling comments”.

According to national press covering the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Mr Gove launched an attack on Prime Minister Liz Truss’s tax cutting policy, claiming it was “not Conservative”.

The former cabinet minister and Vote Leave leader also accused her of failing to give Brexit voters what they wanted in the 2016 referendum, saying that they did not vote for tax cuts or deregulation.

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Cllr Onnalee Cubitt, Conservative borough councillor for Basing and Upton Grey, told Mr Gove she found his comments “unsettling”, according to the Express.

Referred to as a ‘Tory activist’, Cllr Cubitt, who was Mayor of Basingstoke from 2021 to 2022, spoke out against Mr Gove at the Onward thinktank event he was speaking at.

She said: “I have to say how unsettling your comments are to our party at the moment.”

She asked: “How is it after 12 years we have the highest tax burden in the last 70 years? How is it you can accuse the new Chancellor of the Exchequer of market disarray when the dollar rate has gone up 6.7 per cent and the sterling rate is related directly to the dollar rate and the disarray in interest rates is directly a result of the Fed?

“I don’t think it is fair for you to be causing this difficulty as a very senior statesman at a very serious and grave time in our country’s history.”

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According to the Express, Mr Gove responded to say: “If I am wrong Liz Truss will not only have created a bigger pie [for the economy] but I will eat humble pie.”

He explained that he is worried about having tax cuts on this scale funded by borrowing, saying this was “not in the best of Conservative traditions”.

Cllr Cubitt was first elected as a Conservative councillor in 2008 but decided to leave the party in 2012 after a disagreement over the proposed Manydown project.

She was re-elected as an independent candidate in 2014 before re-joining the Conservative group in 2017.

Cllr Cubitt has hit the headlines in the past for her outspoken views.

She faced criticism in 2020 after likening plans to change the way the council offices are used to Year Zero, a term widely recognised as Pol Pot’s takeover in Cambodia, during which 1.8 million people died.

However, she was cleared of any wrongdoing after two formal complaints were made in relation to her comment.

The councillor also caused offence when referring to Covid-19 as the ‘Chinese virus’.

Her comments resulted in her party colleague Simon Bound withdraw his support for her becoming mayor, because of “her track record of being offensive and not giving a damn who she upsets”.

However, none of the 54 councillors objected to her appointment as mayor last year.