Keir Starmer has demanded an immediate general election after the crisis-hit Tories hit a "chaotic new low".
The Labour leader ripped into Liz Truss's collapsing Government, saying the "failures of the past twelve years have now come to the boil" but the Tories can only focus on their "pathetic squabbles".
In a speech to the TUC congress in Brighton, Mr Starmer said “this cannot continue” and demanded a general election now.
Amid chaos in Westminster, Mr Starmer said it was now a "battle for the soul" of the country and sought to put clear red water between Labour and the embattled Tories.
Mr Starmer vowed to oppose and repeal any new Tory anti-strike laws, and to rip up 2016 trade union legislation, in a bid to woo union leaders.
But he doubled down on his opposition to frontbenchers joining picket lines, backing the right to strike "unequivocally" but insisting he won't apologise for "approaching questions about industrial action as a potential Labour Government".
Mr Starmer has been under pressure from some unions to be more explicit in Labour's position on pay and strike action, as hundreds of thousands of workers across the economy face ballots on walkouts.
He won applause for promising to fight Tory anti-strike laws and for promising to back workers by ending fire and rehire, axing zero hours contracts and boosting child care and sick pay.
The Labour leader said the choice for voters was as "stark as it gets", laying bare the economic chaos unleashed by Ms Truss's Government.
He said: "Never again can Britain take seriously their claim to be a party of aspiration or sound money.
"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."
He pointed to victims of crime who can't get justice, people dying because ambulances can't get there on time and millions going without food or heating.
"None of it can drum into the Tories the idea that our country must come first," he said.
"They lack the basic patriotic duty to keep the British people out of their own pathetic squabbles."
"This cannot continue. Britain deserves better. Britain cannot afford the chaos of the Conservatives anymore, we need a General Election now."
Mr Starmer slammed the PM's previous claim that British workers lack "graft" in a leaked recording from when she was a Treasury minister.
Pointing to his sister, who works 14 hour shifts as a care worker, he said: "Every week - yes I mean every week - she struggles to make ends meet... when I think about the work she and millions like her did for our country during the pandemic, risking their health to save lives on low-pay, low-security contracts - and the Prime Minister says the problem is people like my sister lack 'graft'?"
He accused Ms Truss of being fixated on "discredited ideas", adding: "Every day the Tories stick to them, is another nail in the coffin of Britain’s economic credibility."
He went on: "I will not let this be an era of Tory chaos, stagnation, attacks on working people.
"This can’t go on any longer. This cannot be a re-run of the 1980s. That’s what they want."
He said the winter would be "brutal" but Labour would provide decisive leadership lacking in No10.
Meanwhile in Westminster, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper challenged the Government over the departure of Suella Braverman, who quit yesterday after sharing a confidential document with an MP.
Asking an urgent Commons question over the sensational exit, Ms Cooper said: “We’ve got the third Home Secretary in seven weeks.”
Mrs Braverman, who was not in the chamber, was accused of using her Home Office tenure to plot a fresh leadership bid to topple the beleaguered Prime Minister.
Cabinet Office Minister Brendan Clarke-Smith insisted the Home Secretary had to go after breaching the ministerial code because of the PM’s insistence on upholding standards in public life.
“The Prime Minister is clear that the security of government business is paramount, as is Cabinet responsibility,” he told MPs.
