We'll heal wounded Britain, Starmer promises 'despairing' Tory voters

Keir Starmer made a direct appeal yesterday for disillusioned Conservative voters to back Labour at the next election, telling them he would repair a Britain broken by 13 years of Tory governments.

- Pippa Crerar

In what could be the Labour leader's final conference speech before the next election, he set out the case for national renewal and why his party should be given the chance to reverse the decline.

Starmer, who delivered the address in Liverpool in his rolled-up shirtsleeves after a protester leapt on to the stage at the start of his speech and covered his jacket in glitter, declared that the "fire of change still burns in Britain".

With his party requiring a 12% swing to win a majority of just one, Starmer urged "despairing" Tory voters who were "looking in horror" at the descent of their party into the "murky waters" of populism and conspiracy to consider backing Labour.

"If you feel our country needs a party that conserves, that fights for our union, our environment, the rule of law, family life, the careful bond between this generation and the next, then let me tell you: Britain already has one. And you can join it.

It's this Labour party." And he warned his own supporters that Rishi Sunak would fight a dirty election, with the Tories "prepared to scorch the earth" just to attack Labour. "Wherever you think the line is, they've already got plans to cross it".

It followed a largely uneventful conference in Liverpool, which has been the largest ever, with 18,000 attendees including hundreds of business people and an upbeat atmosphere as the party attempted to present itself as a government-in-waiting.