Sir Keir Starmer keen to drive home changes as he visits Sunderland

Sunderland voters were 'were very badly let down' by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, says the man looking to succeed him in Number 10.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was in Sunderland today, Friday, November 3, visiting the Clearly Drinks factory in Southwick, where he toured the plant before fielding questions from staff.

Labour held all three Sunderland seats at the last election, in 2019, but the party's vote share dropped sharply as Jeremy Corbyn proved a turn-off for voters.

Sir Keir was keen to emphasise how much the party had changed and said voters had been let down by Mr Johnson, who 'promised the Earth but delivered nothing'.

"The Labour Party is a changed Labour Party, very different to the Labour Party that stood for election in 2019," he said.

"We are the party that is pro-business, we will work with business, we are have got a plan to grow our economy, to build across Britain, to make sure we have got the infrastructure that we need to raise living standards across Sunderland and the whole region."

And he underlined the party's opposition to calls for a referendum on re-joining the EU.

"We have taken a vote in this country to leave the EU and we have left," he said.

There is no case for re-joining the EU - but what I think people are frustrated about is that what we have got, the deal the Government have negotiated, isn't good enough for them.

"Businesses are frustrated and the cost of that is in jobs, in the cost to take things across borders, we have to address that.

"I would also say there was another element of the Brexit vote - it was many, many people saying 'You are not hearing us, you are not listening to what we have to say"', and I think it is very important we recognise that."

He condemned confusion over the future of the disused Leamside Line, with plans to reopen the route announced by Government only to be withdrawn a day later: "The Leamside Line is a sign of complete chaos in the Government, where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing," he said.

"The Prime Minister was trying to pull a fast one and everybody here called him out on that and rightfully so.

"The whole thing shows a complete lack of planning and anybody here in the North East will tell you infrastructure and transport isn't working as well as it should and I don't just mean between cities, I mean within cites as well."

Sir Keir stressed the importance of working with the region's elected mayors and local authorities:

He said: "You need a workable plan and it means working with local communities, you can't do this from Whitehall.

"It needs to be done from here, and then to put in place a plan that will require tough decisions to be made, about planning, about regulation, about forcing different sectors to work quickly and together because we cannot afford any more of the chaos we have seen in the last 13 years."

He defended the decision to strip Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald of the party whip over comments at a pro-Palestine rally:

Sir Keir added: "I think it's very important that all representatives of the Labour Party are extremely careful in the words that they use at a particular time when there is growing anti-Semitism, growing Islamphobia and growing tension."