Keir Starmer attacked Boris Johnson as a “trickster” with no plan for running the UK as he insisted Labour could win Britain's next election.
In his first in-conference speech as UK Labour leader, Mr Starmer said he was “totally serious” about defeating an inadequate government that “can’t keep the fuel flowing” or supermarket shelves stocked.
But after a bruising conference which has seen him clash with the Labour left, Mr Starmer was heckled by activists over his refusal to support a £15 hourly minimum wage.
In a highly personal speech, the Labour leader described “family and work” as “the two rocks of my life – the two sources of what I believe to be right and good”, highlighting his background as the son of a toolmaker and an NHS nurse who later needed long-term care.
He also contrasted his past as the head of the Crown Prosecution Service with Boris Johnson’s background as a newspaper columnist.
“It’s easy to comfort yourself that your opponents are bad people,” he said.
“But I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man. I think he is a trivial man. I think he’s a showman with nothing left to show. I think he’s a trickster who has performed his one trick.
“Once he had said the words: ‘Get Brexit Done’, his plan ran out. He has no plan.”
But he also recognised Labour’s failure under Jeremy Corbyn to defeat the Tories, and praised the party activists who had saved it from “obliteration” in the landslide defeat in 2019.
“I can see the ways in which we can remake this nation and that’s what we get to do when we win,” Mr Starmer said.
“Yet, in a way, the more we expose the inadequacy of this government the more it presses the question back on us.
Today, for the first time since becoming Labour’s leader, I am delivering my speech to an in-person Conference.
I will be setting out my vision for a brighter, more prosperous Britain.
Watch it live at 12pm here: https://t.co/OGnN4GsdyCAdvertisement— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) September 29, 2021
“If they are so bad, what does it say about us? Because after all in 2019 we lost to them, and we lost badly. I know that hurts each and every one of you.
“So, let’s get totally serious about this – we can win the next election.
“This government can’t keep the fuel flowing, it can’t keep the shelves stocked, and you’ve seen what happens when Boris Johnson wants more money – he goes straight for the wallets of working people.
“Labour is the party that is on the side of working people.”
Mr Starmer arrived on stage to the sound of Brighton resident Fatboy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now. As a child he had music classes at school with the future DJ.
