Labour will never again take your security, job and money for granted, Sir Keir Starmer vows

Labour will never again take voters’ security, jobs, money and communities for granted, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed, as he on Tuesday signalled a radical departure from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

In a clear swipe at his predecessor, the Labour leader declared that the party was now becoming a “competent, credible Opposition” as he sought to cast himself as the heir to Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair.

Speaking at Labour’s virtual annual conference from Doncaster, Sir Keir hit out at the failure of the hard-Left to take ownership of last year’s crushing election defeat, stating that when “you lose an election in a democracy, you deserve to.”

Rather than seeking to blame the electorate, he added that it was time to “look at yourself and ask: ‘what were we doing?’”

In comments that carry echoes of Neil Kinnock’s attack on the Militant movement in 1985, Sir Keir told party members it was time to be “brutally honest” about the scale of change required.

“The Tories have had as many election winners in five years as we’ve had in seventy-five,” he added.

“That means we have to change, and that’s what we’re doing. I don’t underestimate the work that will be needed.

“But I can make this promise: Never again will Labour go into an election not being trusted on national security, with your job, with your community and with your money. That’s what being under new leadership means.”

Highlighting the departure from Mr Corbyn’s leadership, Sir Keir pointed out that Labour had founded the Nato military alliance and insisted that the party would “once again” become the party of the Union.

In an apparent reference to the party’s 2019 manifesto, which critics derided as overloaded and unachievable, he also warned that Labour could not “win back those we’ve lost with a single speech or a clever policy offer.”

And in a bid to underline his commitment to rooting out anti-Semitism, he was introduced by Ruth Smeeth, a former Labour MP for Leave-voting Stoke on Trent, who as chair of the Jewish Labour Movement was a vociferous critic of Mr Corbyn.

Highlighting the achievements of Attlee, Wilson and Blair, Sir Keir continued: “In the 75 years since the historic victory of 1945 there have only been three Labour winners. I want to be the fourth.

“And when you look back to 1945, 1964 and 1997 you learn an important lesson. The lesson is don’t look back, look to the future.

“We need to be thinking about the questions of 2024 and the 2030s, not the questions of the past.”

He also took aim at Boris Johnson’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, accusing the Government of “incompetence” which he argued was “holding Britain back.”

Branding the spread of the virus through care homes as a “national scandal”, he criticised the failure to establish a “serviceable” testing system and insisted that there was “nothing inevitable about a second lockdown.”

Sir Keir added that the coronavirus had exposed the “perilous state” of social care in the UK, which he described as a “disgrace to a rich nation.”

“After a decade of drift, this Government must finally fix our social care system,” he continued. “So that it treats those who have given so much with the respect, love and dignity that they deserve.”

Urging voters in the party’s former strongholds who defected to the Conservatives last year to “look again at Labour” Sir Keir insisted the party was patriotic and “love this country as you do.”

He also recalled how receiving his knighthood at Buckingham Palace was “one of the proudest moments” of his parents’ lives and declared he wanted Britain to be “the best country to grow up in and the best country to grow old in.”

“A country in which we put family first. A country that embodies the values I hold dear,” he added.

“Decency, fairness, opportunity, compassion and security. Security for our nation, our families and for all of our communities.”