Starmer: “The Labour choice is a Britain that is fairer, greener and more dynamic”

Keir Starmer is expected to tell TUC Congress that “the Labour choice is a Britain that is fairer, greener and more dynamic” as he pledges to fight further anti-trade union legislation and meet Conservative “attacks” with “hope”.

Delivering his keynote speech to the annual gathering of the trade union federation on Thursday, the Labour leader will promise to “restore faith in politics and get Britain’s hope, its confidence and its future back”.

He will criticise the damage done by the Conservatives following their controversial ‘mini-Budget’ and weeks of political and economic turmoil, telling delegates: “They can dance around and U-turn. They can sack this Chancellor or that Prime Minister. But the damage is done and they did it.

“They crashed the British economy – and for what? To show they were on the side of the richest 1%. A crisis made in Downing Street, without a mandate, paid for by working people in higher bills, higher rents and higher mortgages.”

In the speech, to be delivered following Jeremy Hunt’s emergency statement on Monday in which the Chancellor warned that there are “difficult decisions” to come on spending, the Labour leader is expected to say the Tories will “turn to austerity” to “get our country out of the hole that they dug”.

He will also describe as “insulting” comments made by Liz Truss in which the Prime Minister blamed British workers for low productivity and said that they lack “skill and application” and “need to show “more graft”.

Starmer will express the need for a “long-term plan” for growth, a plan that will “deliver cheaper bills and higher living standards for working people, growth and jobs in every part of our country and real independence from tyrants like Putin”.

The opposition leader announced at his party’s annual conference last month that Labour will create ‘Great British Energy’, a publicly-owned clean energy generation company, “within the first year of a Labour government”.

“Great British Energy – a publicly owned company that takes advantage of the opportunities in clean British power and turns them into good, secure, high-paid British jobs,” the Labour leader will tell TUC Congress.

“Clean energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels – nine times cheaper. Working people need more of it. Britain needs to own it. And the jobs and growth we generate must be shared with every community. That’s the Labour choice.”

Starmer will describe the Prime Minister as “completely out of touch with the reality of the British economy” and argue that “working people will not be better off because we make the rich, richer”, saying the Conservatives’ trickle-down approach to the economy is “pure dogma”.

“The world has moved on from these discredited ideas. Every day the Tories stick to them, is a further nail in the coffin for Britain’s economic credibility,” he will say.

Starmer is expected to argue that because of “the damage the Tories have done” to the country’s finances and public services, “things will be really tough” and say that a Labour government “will not take any risks with the public finances”.

“When you lose control of the economy – as the Tories have done – you lose the ability to do anything. And working people pay the price. That will not happen with Labour. I won’t let it,” he will add.

The pound fell to its lowest level to date against the dollar, government borrowing costs soared and the Bank of England took emergency action in a bid to calm the markets in response to the mini-Budget delivered by Kwasi Kwarteng.

Following Kwarteng’s sacking, after just 38 days as Chancellor, his successor Hunt announced that the government will “reverse almost all the tax measures” unveiled in the mini-Budget that “have not started parliamentary legislation”.

The government had already U-turned on significant parts of the fiscal statement, before the statement on Monday, including proposals to abolish the top rate of income tax and abandoning a corporation tax rise.