Sir Keir Starmer has urged the Government to keep the public out of their “pathetic squabbles”.
Sir Keir’s comments come after the Government defeated Labour’s bid to ban fracking amid farcical scenes in the Commons on Wednesday.
Speaking at the TUC conference in Brighton, the Labour leader said the Tories had wrecked national and household finances, adding: “Britain deserves better, Britain cannot afford the chaos of the Conservatives any more, we need a general election now.”
He continued: “Never again can Britain take seriously their claim to be a party of aspiration or sound money.
Sir Keir Starmer
Stefan Rousseau
“Last night in Parliament, even by their standards, a new chaotic low.
“All the failures of the past 12 years have now come to the boil. The victims of crime who can’t get justice. People dying because ambulances can’t get there on time.
“Millions going without food or heating.
“And none of it can drum into the Tories the idea that our country must come first. They lack the basic patriotic duty to keep the British people out of their own pathetic squabbles.”
Sir Keir added that the political choice “is now as stark as it gets.
Sir Keir Starmer speaking at the TUC conference in
Stefan Rousseau
“While politics is always about choices, the choice now is as stark as it gets.
“We face a battle for the soul of our country”.
He said the Labour Party is “dedicated to building an economy that works for working people.”
“It’s not just the privileged few, the Tories are so wrong about that”.
Sir Keir began his address to the congress in Brighton by making another reference to the political chaos in Westminster.
“With everything going on, I’m a bit nervous to turn my phone off for half an hour or 45 minutes,” he said.
“We really don’t know will have happened by the time we turn it back on.”
While the Labour leader also accused Prime Minister Liz Truss of being “completely out of touch” with the UK’s economic reality.
He added: “The Prime Minister is completely out of touch with the reality of the British economy.
“She doesn’t care about the distribution of wealth in Britain, She hasn’t U-turned on that.
“Congress, forget about lines on a graph. If you leave this many people behind, a nation will not grow fairly.
“You can’t do it with low wages, you can’t do it with insecure jobs and bad work, and you can’t do it without a modern industrial strategy.
“This isn’t a debate. The evidence is in."