Labour will end the Conservative “psychodrama” and return government to the “mundane stuff”, Keir Starmer will pledge, in a plea to the “red wall” voters the party is targeting.
His “changed” party is committed to national security and careful management of taxpayer money, he will emphasise in a speech that has been moved to Buckinghamshire from a northern constituency in order for the Labour leader to stay close to Westminster as MPs prepare to vote on the government’s Rwanda bill.
Starmer will seek to portray Tory splits over the policy as a “perfect example” of Rishi Sunak’s party “putting internal party squabbles over the priorities of working people”.
“We’re all stuck in their psychodrama, all being dragged down to their level,” he will say in a speech marking the fourth anniversary of the 2019 general election. “While they’re all swanning around self-importantly with their factions and their ‘star chambers’, fighting like rats in a sack, there’s a country out here that isn’t being governed.”
Starmer will argue that the next election is about “something deeper … than the usual competing visions” and promise that a Labour government would usher in what he describes as “a decade of national renewal”.
He will contrast this with what he claims has been the “national decline” inflicted on Britain by the Conservatives and will accuse Sunak’s party of “an entitlement to power totally unchecked by any sense of service or responsibility”, adding: “That’s the cultural stain that runs through the modern Conservative party.”
He will describe Britain as a “practical nation” but claim it is one in which people now cannot afford Christmas, where they don’t know if the ambulance they have called will come and where 6,000 crimes go unpunished every day.
“Common sense is rolling your sleeves up and solving these problems practically, not indulging in some kind of political performance art,” he will add. “This goes for stopping the boats as well. It’s not about wave machines, or armoured jetskis, or schemes like Rwanda you know will never work.
“It’s about doing the basics better. The mundane stuff. The bureaucratic stuff. Busting the backlogs. Rebuilding a functioning asylum system. Removing people more quickly so you don’t have to run up hotel bills. And a cross-border police force that can smash the smuggler gangs at source.”
Starmer will directly address Conservative voters, with a particular eye on the former Labour supporters who abandoned the party when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn, insisting that the party has “fundamentally changed” under his own leadership and that it is “not just a paint job”.
“If you voted for the Conservatives four years ago, you’re still waiting for the change you demanded,” he will say. “If you want a government committed to economic stability, the rule of law, good public services, restoring Britain’s standing, making family life more secure and putting the country first, this is what a changed Labour party will deliver.”
