Rishi Sunak has vowed to take on the “lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women.”
Mr Sunak was speaking during the latest Conservative hustings in Manchester, broadcast live on GB News.
The event, hosted by GB News’ Alastair Stewart, gave Mr Sunak and Liz Truss the opportunity to convince Conservative members living in the North of England they should be the next Prime Minister.
Speaking to the audience, Mr Sunak pledged to “restore trust by delivering on the things that matter to people”.
Rishi Sunak
GB News
Mr Sunak speaking during the latest Conservative hustings in Manchester
GB News
He continued: “That’s why I’ve set out a plan to finally start reforming the NHS so that we can talk less about how much money we can put into it and more in the healthcare that we want to get out of it.
“It’s why I want to take on this lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women.
“And it’s why we need to restore trust of communities right here by calling out the failures of the Labour mayor Andy Burnham because it simply isn’t good enough.
“Just look at the record, a police force that was put into special measures, the highest rates of knife crimes almost across the UK."
Mr Sunak added: “I will make sure that the police have the powers to do their job and whether it’s stop and search or other, I will never let political correctness stand in the way of keeping us safe.
“And we saw him again today (Mr Burnham), a day of strikes, of Avanti cancelling trains and whilst the Conservative Party were sticking up for hard working families, the Labour party and Andy Burnham were sticking up for unions and the British people deserve better.
“And it’s why I’ve set out a radical plan to finally get to grips with illegal migration.
"Because for too long we’ve turned on our TV screens and seen the scenes of people coming here on boats illegally and it is wrong.”
His comments come days after the number of migrants to have crossed the Channel so far this year passed 21,000.
Official figures released by the Ministry of Defence, which runs Command and Control of the Channel migrant operation, show that 606 people were taken off 12 small boats by UK authorities after reaching British territorial waters on Wednesday.
It’s the fourth time that more than 600 people have crossed in a single day this year.