ANGRY former Thomas Cook workers protested outside the Tory Party conference today, shouting “pay us now” as they demanded financial support from the government.

Scores of workers joined the demonstration in Manchester, some holding placards reading: “Bankers bailed out, Thomas Cook kicked out” and some wearing their uniforms.

Around 9,000 workers lost their jobs without warning last week when the travel firm went into liquidation.

Most are owed around seven weeks’ wages.

The workers, who are members of the Unite union, are particularly angry that the government failed to intervene to save the struggling company.

Ministers rejected an attempt to secure a rescue deal that would address the business’s £200 million debt shortfall.

The government inaction has been negatively contrasted to the help received by Thomas Cook’s sister airlines in Spain, Germany and Scandinavian countries from their respective national governments.

A subsequent Civil Aviation Authority rescue of 150,000 stranded passengers is thought to have been the largest repatriation of British citizens since the second world war.

Many customers hit by the travel firm’s collapse may have to wait as long as two months to receive a refund, according to the authority.

Workers were joined by Labour politicians such as Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Stockport parliamentary candidate Navendu Mishra and shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey, who told workers that their treatment has been “appalling.”

“It was heartbreaking to stand with Thomas Cook staff demonstrating at the Tory conference in Manchester this morning,” she told the Star.

“With thousands of staff now unemployed, it is staggering that the government has shirked their responsibilities: from not meeting with Thomas Cook prior to the collapse through to refusing to intervene and save profitable parts of the company, as the German government did with Condor.

“What is even more shameful, with reports of executive pay dramatically increasing even as the company struggled, years on from the BHS and Carillion scandals, the government has still done nothing to end the bandit capitalism and short-termism that leaves a huge scar across our corporate governance regime.”

A Thomas Cook worker who gave his name as Mario told the Star: “Everyone is absolutely devastated.

“People have been there for years and decades. They can’t go into other jobs, they can’t do other careers. This is their life.

“We had no warnings, absolutely no warnings. It was business as usual, then gone.”

Mario said he was on one of the last Thomas Cook flights before the company’s closure. He heard about it when a flight attendant received a text saying that the company had gone bust.

“It was very very hard to continue your business and keep attending to passengers with that news hanging over your head,” he said.

Mario’s message to Prime Minister Boris Johnson was clear: “We need to get some answers.

“Investigate where the money’s gone — and why.”