Labour conference: Boris Johnson ‘not up to the job’ of prime minister, Keir Starmer says

Sir Keir Starmer has branded Boris Johnson as “not up to the job” of prime minister as he blamed his incompetence for a botched response to the coronavirus crisis and sought to position Labour as a credible alternative government.

Launching a brutal attack on Mr Johnson’s record as PM, Sir Keir denounced his handling of care homes in the pandemic as a “national scandal” and said that a second lockdown would be a “government failure”.

In a speech to Labour’s virtual conference designed to draw a line under the Jeremy Corbyn years by promising a “new leadership”, Sir Keir put character at the heart of his assault on Mr Johnson, contrasting his record as a barrister and director of public prosecutions at a time when the PM was a “flippant” newspaper columnist.

He appealed to voters to “take another look at Labour”, telling them that under its new leadership it would be a party that “takes the job seriously” and delivers answers to the problems of the future.

Speaking just hours before Mr Johnson was due to unveil new national restrictions to rein in an upsurge in Covid-19 cases across the country, Sir Keir said that the government had “lost control” of the crisis.

“There should be nothing inevitable about a second lockdown,” he said.

“It would be a sign of government failure, not an act of God. It would take an immense toll on people’s physical and mental health and on the economy. We need a national effort to prevent a national lockdown.

“But instead of getting a grip, the government has lost control.”

While insisting he was ready to be “constructive” about measures needed to tackle Covid-19, Sir Keir said he was “angry” at the government’s failure to deliver a working test and trace system, provide frontline workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) and produce fair exam results, while “wasting millions of your money in the process”.

“I’ve tried to be fair, to give the government the benefit of the doubt,” said Sir Keir. 

“But now, with one of the highest death rates in the world, and on the threshold of one of the deepest recessions anywhere, I’m afraid there is no doubt.

“This government’s incompetence is holding Britain back.”

Pointing the finger of blame squarely at Mr Johnson, Sir Keir said: “Crisis reveals character like nothing else.

“And I think we’ve learnt a lot about this prime minister. Tory back-benchers know it. His cabinet knows it. We all know it.

“He’s just not serious. He’s just not up to the job.”

He added:  “Whenever he encounters a problem, Johnson responds either by wishing it away or by lashing out.

“He kept wishing away the problems with testing, pretending they didn’t exist. He wished away the problems with the Irish border. Then, when he finally realised what he’d signed up to, he lashed out and decided to break international law.

“We’re all doing our bit to combat the virus by obeying the rule of six. Meanwhile, the government won’t even obey the rule of law.

“And this is the big difference between the prime minister and me: while Boris Johnson was writing flippant columns about bendy bananas, I was defending victims and prosecuting terrorists.  

“While he was being sacked by a newspaper for making up quotes, I was fighting for justice and the rule of law.”

In a clear effort to contrast himself with Mr Corbyn, Sir Keir name-checked Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair as election-winning Labour leaders who he wanted to follow into power.

He said that Labour had to be “brutally honest” and admit that it “deserved” to lose the general election in December last year, when it went down to its worst defeat since 1935 under Mr Corbyn.

Branding the failure to win elections a “betrayal” of Labour’s supporters and voters, he said: “It’s time to get serious about winning.

“That means we have to change, and that’s what we’re doing. This is a party under new leadership.”

There were no policy announcements in the address, delivered to an empty hall in Doncaster after Labour’s traditional annual conference in Liverpool had to be cancelled because of the coronavirus.

But Sir Keir promised that when he unveils the party’s programme for the 2024 election, “it will be rooted in Labour values, it won’t sound like anything you’ve heard before, it will sound like the future arriving”.

In what will be widely seen as a disavowal of the Corbyn agenda, Sir Keir said he was not “the kind of leader who wants to turn the clock back”, adding: “Times change and so do political priorities.”

“In the 75 years since the historic victory of 1945, there have only been three Labour winners,” he said. “I want to be the fourth.

“And when you look back to 1945, 1964 and 1997 you learn an important lesson. The lesson is don’t look back; look to the future.

“We need to be thinking about the questions of 2024 and the 2030s, not the questions of the past.”

He made clear he would not be reopening the question of EU membership, insisting that the challenge now was to deal with Brexit in a “grown-up” way and secure a trade deal with Brussels.

And in a clear drive to win back the traditional Labour voters of the “red wall” seats in the Midlands and the north that fell to Mr Johnson in December, he said that his values were based on family, security and ambition for the country.

“I don’t want to win power just to be prime minister. I want to win because of the country I love and because of the values I hold dear,” said the Labour leader.

But, he added: “You don’t get the permission to act unless the public trusts you. And we still have a lot to do.

“I don’t underestimate the work that will be needed. But I can make this promise: never again will Labour go into an election not being trusted on national security, with your job, with your community and with your money.

“That’s what being under new leadership means.”