Labour will pledge this week to reverse the decline in manufacturing, as new figures show a fall of 93,000 jobs in the sector since the Conservatives took power. Touring the north-west of England on Tuesday, Keir Starmer will highlight figures in Germany, where more than 1 million manufacturing jobs have been created over the same period. The Labour leader said manufacturing was in deep decline under the Tories because of low investment and cuts to skills budgets. He will visit Burnley, now a marginal Tory seat that was won by the Conservatives in 2019 – the first time in 100 years. In the new analysis released by Labour before Starmer’s visit, the party said jobs in manufacturing fell by 93,000 between the end of 2009 and the end of 2021. This includes 16,000 jobs lost in the north of England and 18,500 in the Midlands. Starmer will tour the heavily leave constituency to underline the need to revive areas where manufacturing had declined. He said a Labour government would reverse that trend with a combination of investment in new technologies and training – especially in green technologies – and the awarding of more public contracts to British businesses. The Labour leader will visit What More, a north-west manufacturer of reusable plastic storage boxes and homeware, including from recycled single-use plastic.
“It’s not enough to just leave the EU and think the job is done: we must now make Brexit work. That means backing the places that powered our country to get our economy motoring again,” Starmer said ahead of the visit. “For too long the decline of manufacturing has been treated as if it was inevitable and irreversible. I will never accept that. But these figures show how the government’s failure to back British business has led to a shocking decline in the number of jobs.” He said Labour would have “practical plans to buy, make and sell in Britain … We would be as ambitious for towns and cities across the country as they are for themselves, investing in skills, technology, and quality jobs – so that people once again feel the benefits of British industry.” Starmer said his father’s job as a toolmaker gave him first-hand knowledge of “the pride that comes with creating and building things – and the pain felt when the Tories dismantle that hard work”. “That’s why it’s a crucial part of my contract with the British people, which will build a new Britain that guarantees security, prosperity and respect for all” he said. Earlier on the first day of his three-day tour in Sunderland, Starmer confirmed that he had received death threats following Boris Johnson’s false claim that he failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile while director of public prosecutions. Police have launched an investigation into online death threats against the Labour leader, but Starmer said he did not want to discuss them in detail. “I do not like talking about this because I have got young children,” he told BBC Radio Newcastle. “It’s very important for me to say that what the prime minister said was wrong, it was very wrong. He knew exactly what he was doing. There has been a rightwing conspiracy theory for some time that’s a complete fabrication. He fed into that, and that has caused difficulty.”