Keir Starmer pounces on Sterling crisis urging Britons not to ‘forgive’ Liz Truss as he gives conference speech disowning Corbyn’s hard-Left legacy and pleading for backing from Brexit voters – after shock poll puts Labour 17-POINTS ahead of Tories

• Keir Starmer is delivering his keynote speech to activists at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool 
• Shock poll has put Labour 17 points ahead of the Tories after the Emergency Budget – but before Pound slump
• Shadow cabinet are increasingly confident of ‘winning big’ gloating that Conservatives ‘f***ed’ in Red Wall

Keir Starmer pounced on on the Sterling crisis today claiming Labour is now the party of ‘sound money’ as he delivered his keynote speech to activists.

The party leader told the party faithful in Liverpool that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have ‘lost control’ after the Pound dived to a new record low against the US dollar.

Although it has since clawed back some ground, Sir Keir said the chaos showed that the Tories no longer own the economic battleground – urging voters not to ‘forgive’ or ‘forget’ that they were prioritising tax cuts for the wealthiest.

On the cost-of-living woes, Sir Keir said he would create a publicly-owned ‘Great British Energy’ company to drive renewables and ensure value for consumers.   

Keir Starmer speech: key points

In his speech in Liverpool Sir Keir Starmer: 

• Claimed Liz Truss has ‘lost control of the economy’ and ‘crashed the pound’
• Vowed to put energy firms’ profits ‘to work’ through a windfall tax to pay energy bills
• Suggested ‘many lives are at risk this winter’ due to the NHS backlog.
• Said Kwarteng mini-Budget showed the Tories were no longer the ‘party of aspiration’. 

He channeled Tony Blair by saying that Labour is the ‘political wing of the British people’ – underlining the extent to which the hard-Left has been marginalised after the Corbyn years.

Disowning his predecessor’s legacy, Sir Keir said backing Nato and Ukraine is non-negotiable, and he would always be ‘country first, party second’.

He said a Labour government would only ‘borrow to invest in the long-term national interest’, drawing a contrast with the Tories using debt to reduce the tax burden. 

And there was a direct appeal for Brexit voters to come back into the fold. 

Admitting he backed staying in the EU, Sir Keir said he would ‘make Brexit work’. ‘Whether you voted Leave or Remain, you have been let down,’ he said.  

As he went on the attack over the currency crash, Sir Keir said: ‘We can’t go on like this. What we have seen in the past few days has no precedent.

‘The government has lost control of the British economy – and for what? They’ve crashed the Pound – and for what?

‘Higher interest rates. Higher inflation. Higher borrowing. And for what?

‘Not for you. Not for working people. For tax cuts for the richest 1 per cent in our society.

‘Don’t forget. Don’t forgive.’

He added: ‘They haven’t just failed to fix the roof, they have ripped out the foundations, smashed through the windows, and now they have blown the doors off for good measure.’ 

The address came after a shock poll showed Labour 17 points ahead of the Conservatives, with the advantage biggest ever found by YouGov. 

Although an election is still potentially two years away, shadow cabinet ministers have been privately jubilant, claiming ministers have played into their hands by cutting taxes for the wealthy. 

One told MailOnline they now expect to ‘win big’ with voters, gloating that the Conservatives are ‘f***ed’ in the Red Wall. 

On another dramatic day: 

• Mr Kwarteng has met asset managers, pension funds and insurers trying to reassure them he is ‘confident’ the government’s economic plan will work;
• Virgin Atlantic boss Shai Weiss said the fall in the value of the pound means the UK is ‘on sale’ for overseas tourists and they should ‘come and see the new King for half price’; 
• The Tories have announced that the slogan for their conference next week will be ‘getting Britain moving’;
• Britons have been voicing fears about soaring interest rates as mortgage deals are axed by banks;
• Sir Keir is facing calls to suspend MP Rupa Huq after a recording emerged of her describing Mr Kwarteng as ‘superficially’ black at a fringe event. 

Keir Starmer pounced on on the Sterling crisis today claiming Labour is now the party of ‘sound money’ as he delivered his keynote speech to activists

Sir Keir was flanked by party activists on the stage as he gave his speech today

Keir Starmer (pictured arriving with wife Victoria today) told the party faithful in Liverpool that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have ‘lost control’ after the Pound dived to a new record low against the US dollar

The advantage in the YouGov research was the biggest the firm has found, suggesting Sir Keir’s party is on track for victory at the election – albeit still potentially two years away

Sir Keir made clear he is ready to fight the Tories on the economy, with Labour now the party of ‘sound money’.

He said with the Emergency Budget ‘in one bold move on Friday the Tory Party gave up on any claim it might have had to be a party of aspiration’. 

Britons had endured austerity, when they ‘paid for a mess made by bankers’, Sir Keir said.

He also made an oblique reference to the Brexit vote, saying the public ‘cried out for economic change in a referendum, but their calls went unanswered’.

‘They united to defeat a virus only to see the government break all the rules that they respected,’ he said. 

‘And now this. The biggest hit to their living standards in a century. And it turns out there is money – for the top 1 per cent.’ 

Sir Keir said an ‘unwritten contract’ with the British people has been broken by the Conservatives as families worry about whether their children will have a better future.

‘After 12 long years our spirit is ground down. When I talk to working people now, they tell me they work harder and harder just to stand still,’ he said.

‘That their graft can’t provide their family with a sense of security, that they’re worried their kids won’t have a better life than them.

‘Conference, what does it say about Britain when families worry like this about their children’s future? It says an unwritten contract is broken. A contract where in return for hard work, you get on.

‘Where your contribution is always respected and which reaches through the generations to say Britain will be better for your children.

‘That’s the deep cost of Tory failure. They keep talking about aspiration but they don’t understand how they’ve choked it off for working people.’

Sir Keir will pledge to make the UK a ‘growth superpower’, saying his plans for a green revolution would create a million jobs and tackle climate change.

And he will signal that Labour is ready to extend its energy price freeze beyond its current six-month lifespan, adding: ‘We should never be left cowering in a brace position, worrying about how to get through a winter. It’s time for Britain to stand tall again.’

A Labour source dismissed the idea that Sir Keir believed he was on course for a 1997-style landslide at the next election. But the insider added: ‘He wants to be the next Labour leader to take the party from opposition to government. Tony Blair was the last person to do that.’

In a round of interviews, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting accused Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng of taking a ‘reckless gamble’ rather than showing ‘serious leadership’.

‘The cavalry is coming with Labour,’ he told Sky News.

YouGov polling for the Times conducted over the weekend put Labour on 45 per cent with the Tories on 28 per cent – the greatest lead since the firm began polling in 2001.

He said Sir Keir needs to ‘turn the anger and frankly disgust with the Conservatives into a positive appetite for Labour’.

But Labour’s economic credentials risked being undermined last night after shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves revealed union leaders would be given a role in setting economic policy. She wants to appoint them to a new national economic council sitting alongside figures from industry.

Revealing her plans, Ms Reeves said: ‘I would bring together a national economic council that will bring together industry and trade unions, so working people and businesses were at the heart of economic decision-making.’

A Labour source said unions would have an ‘advisory’ role only.

The move will raise fears of a return to the ‘beer and sandwiches’ approach of the 1960s and 1970s which saw union leaders gain ever more control over economic policy. And it will raise eyebrows at a time when unions in a range of industries are pushing for strike action.

Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, yesterday offered to give Sir Keir a ‘bacon butty’ if he visited striking postal workers on the picket line.

‘Keir, if you believe in the sovereignty of this country, don’t worry too much about whether people sing the national anthem, get out there, show your support that you’re going to save the Royal Mail,’ he said.

In a sign of the unions’ continuing influence over Labour, Ms Reeves yesterday paved the way for the introduction of a higher minimum wage.

Unions are pushing for the legal minimum to be increased to £15 an hour from its current rate of £9.50, despite warnings it could cost jobs and saddle public services with huge additional wage bills. The Shadow Chancellor declined to set a target for the new wage, but said it should ‘reflect the real cost of living’.

The shadow cabinet dutifully applauded the Labour leader’s speech in Liverpool this afternoon 

In his address to activists this afternoon, Sir Keir quoted Tony Blair saying Labour is the ‘political wing of the British people’

She said her first act in government would be to write to the Low Pay Commission telling it to set the minimum wage at a level that reflects living costs.

‘The last Labour government delivered Britain’s first national minimum wage,’ she said. ‘The next Labour government will introduce a genuine living wage.’

The shadow chancellor also pledged to reinstate the top rate of tax, and use the £2billion in revenues to increase NHS staffing. Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng scrapped the tax rate of 45 per cent on earnings above £150,000 last week, giving around 660,000 high earners an average tax break worth £10,000.

Ms Reeves said Labour would ensure the better off pay their ‘fair share’ by restoring the tax.

She said the cash raised would allow the NHS to double the number of district nurses qualifying every year, train more than 5,000 health visitors and create an extra 10,000 nursing and midwife placements every year.

But, despite criticising the Government’s decision to pay for the tax cut with borrowing, she indicated the extra money for the NHS would also be borrowed rather than raised elsewhere.

She claimed it was only the scale of state borrowing that had ‘spooked the markets’.

‘When I set out my fiscal rules last year I said that in emergency situations – and we are absolutely in a national emergency at the moment – you can borrow and the Government is borrowing, it’s the scale of the borrowing,’ she said.

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