An "arrogant and dismissive" Tory government is "abandoning' the Red Wall communities Boris Johnson pledged he would level up, Labour's Lisa Nandy has said.
The Shadow Communities Secretary accused the Conservatives of breaking promises made at the 2019 election as fresh analysis from Bloomberg showed 86% of ‘Red Wall’ constituencies that voted Tory had fallen further behind London and the South East since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.
Speaking at an event in Halifax, Ms Nandy said: “For decades too many places have been denied the investment and backing to prosper.
"People and entire places have been written off. Behind this is an arrogant and dismissive belief that we don’t have a contribution to make to the future of this country. We do.
“Young people in Wigan, Barnsley and Aberdeen can power us through the next century like their parents and grandparents powered us through the last.
"Spend time in any one of those communities and you will find huge ambition.
"But we need a government that backs us – that shares our ambition – and that will support us to make that contribution to our national story.
“The Conservatives aren’t just quietly abandoning Levelling Up, they are abandoning the communities to whom they promised so much."
She vowed that if Keir Starmer's Labour Party emerged victorious at the next election, his government would "work with our communities, empowering them and their leaders to rebuild Britain from the ground up."
She said: "We share the enormous ambition that people across this country have for themselves, their families and their communities - and we will match it.”
