RISHI Sunak insists the Tories can win the next election as he accuses Sir Keir Starmer of winning at any price.
The Prime Minister launched a blistering attack on the Labour leader as he made a major speech on national security.
Speaking to an audience in central London he said that voters had a clear choice at the election when they go to the polls later this year.
He said the public will be able to choose between “the future and the past” when they cast their votes.
He said: “I remain confident that my party can prevail, not because of our record alone but because we will be the only party really talking about the future.”
He told an audience at the Policy Exchange think tank that the defection of Natalie Elphicke that Labour were sticking to the “cynical pursuit of power at any price”.
The PM said: “I am clear-eyed enough to admit that yes, maybe they can depress their way to victory with all their talk of doom loops and gaslighting and scaremongering about pensions.
“But I don’t think it will work because at heart we are a nation of optimists.”
He added: “This is someone who went from embracing Jeremy Corbyn to embracing Natalie Elphicke.
“It just tells you that you can’t trust what the guy says. And if you are trying to be everything to everyone, fundamentally you don’t stand for anything.”
He also threw down the gauntlet to Sir Keir – saying he would debate him as many times as he wants in the run-up to polling day.
The PM was asked about the timing of the election but didn’t categorically rule out a summer poll.
He has said on several occasions that his working assumption is that the election will be in the second half of the year.
He said: “I have been clear I think from right at the beginning of this year that my working assumption is that we will have an election in the second half of this year.
“Obviously this question about election timing is a game that the Labour Party want to play. They want to make everything about process and not about substance.
“But I think the country deserves a more substantive debate than that.
“When that election campaign does come, when people are considering that choice, I am happy to debate Keir Starmer as many times as he would like on that choice.”
Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said: “Rishi Sunak’s seventh reset in 18 months is just another desperate attempt to hide from the appalling record of this failed Tory government.
“After 14 years of leaving the country less secure at home and abroad, the Tories have forfeited the right to talk about security.
“Millions of people are paying more on their mortgages, crime is going unsolved, dangerous prisoners are being let out early, the armed forces have been hollowed out and the NHS is on its knees.
“That is this government’s record and the only way to turn the page and end the chaos is with a Labour government.”
Previously, Lord Cameron also blasted Labour for taking in Elphicke, saying it was “naked opportunism”.
Lord Cameron said: “This is quite a right-wing Conservative MP suddenly welcomed into the Labour fold having never supported any of their policies, people or approaches.”
Furious Dover residents have also accused their MP, Elphicke, of “cheating on the electorate” — by switching to Labour and abandoning the Tories’ Rwanda plan.
Elphicke took over as Conservative MP for Dover after her ex-husband Charlie Elphicke was jailed for sexual assault in 2020.
They split when his appeal was turned down in 2021 and now she’s left the Tories.
