Labour Attacks Tory Record On Levelling Up In Local Election Campaign Launch

Labour leader Keir Starmer has attacked the government's flagship levelling up proposals at a launch of the party's local election campaign in Dudley, with a plea to the electorate to vote for "a changed Labour party ready to serve the interests of working people" on 2 May.

Voters will go to the polls for local elections across England in May, with several major mayoralties due to be voted on, including in the West Midlands where Conservative Andy Street currently holds office. 

Starmer pledged to "get Britain's future back", with a significant proportion of his speech focusing on former prime minister Boris Johnson's pledges to "level up" the Midlands and the North – claiming the government had failed to deliver on it. 

"It was right here that the former prime minister – actually the former, former prime minister, if I'm going to be accurate – gave his big levelling up speech, a project he said would turn the tide on regional inequality in this country, and give a fair share to towns like Dudley," Starmer said.

"People say to me the worst thing you can do in politics is to prey on people's fear, yet in some ways preying on their hopes is just as bad. And that's what the Tories did with levelling up.

"Of course it struck a chord, of course a town like Dudley wanted that hope to be real, not just the promise of a better future, we all need that. It's also how that project knowingly spoke to what towns like [Dudley] have lost."

Starmer said Labour wanted to allow local communities to "take back control" with greater devolution in order to bolster economic growth across the UK in a bid to secure levelling up. 

"We will deploy the full power of Government to deliver security for working people; we will also give power away, put