Emily Thornberry – 2022 Speech to Labour Party Conference

The speech made by Emily Thornberry on 27 September 2022.

Conference, it’s a pleasure to be back in Liverpool.

But I must start with an apology. The last time I stood here in 2018, I was shadowing Boris Johnson. When our conference was cancelled in 2020, I was shadowing Liz Truss.

So, I don’t know what this curse is, but I apologise in advance for the catastrophic period in our national history that will be the premiership of Suella Braverman.

It could get worse though. We may need an emergency motion stating that Keir cannot under any circumstances make me shadow Jacob Rees-Mogg.

But whoever leads the Tories, we know they are hell-bent on tearing apart the society that we have sought all our lives to make stronger and fairer. That is why we are all in politics. That is why we fight to get into government.

But we can never build that society without the foundation of laws that apply equally to everyone, and a criminal justice system that enforces them; a foundation becoming weaker every day the Tories stay in office.

Think about the almost 99 out of 100 women who suffer the ordeal of being raped but never see their attacker charged, or the tiny minority who do, but have to wait three years for their day in court. Those figures should shame ministers, but instead they just shrug and let them get ever worse.

Think about the epidemic of fraud sweeping Britain, destroying lives and wrecking dreams, cheating workers out of their wages and pensioners out of their savings.

Asked about that seven months ago, Kwasi Kwarteng said that fraud was not the kind of crime “people experience in their day-to-day lives”, just the kind of insight and empathy which gets you promoted to Chancellor under Liz Truss.

But if the consumer fraud gangs are able to ply their parasitic trade with impunity, it is nothing compared to those committing corporate fraud.

In 2013, I published a report urging the government to tackle those companies committing fraud at the expense of their employees, their competitors, and all too often the public purse.

In the decade since I published that report, just seven companies have been convicted of corporate fraud. In that same period, 5,000 times as many people have been convicted of benefits fraud.

That shows this government’s double standards, but also their downright indolence. Faced with a complex challenge, they have simply waved the white flag to white collar crime, and stop trying to convict those responsible.

Another addition to their special club of criminal impunity, along with burglary, vehicle theft, street robbery, and to their eternal shame, rape and sexual assault.

But that will all change under a Labour government.

As Steve and Yvette will spell out, we will end the era of criminal impunity. We will give protection and security to women and girls, the elderly and the vulnerable. And we will send the message loud and clear to all those who prey on our communities, that we are coming for you.

That goes as well for corporate fraudsters. As I have set out in a new report today, we will change the law to make it easier to prosecute companies for fraud, and send the message loud and clear to unscrupulous bosses, that if you refuse to play by the rules, then we are coming for you too.

But when it comes to out-of-control individuals who consider themselves above the law, the biggest problem facing our country is not the criminals on the street or in the boardroom, but this current Tory government.

From Rwanda and Northern Ireland to Covid contracts and workers’ rights, this is a government which treats the law not as a guardrail to keep it on the straight and narrow, but a barrier to be torn down whenever it gets in their way.

That does not on its own explain the fact that so many crimes now go unpunished, or the record backlogs that have brought our courts to breaking point, or the collapse of legal aid as our guarantee of equality before the law.

But what it does explain is how those cracks can emerge in the foundation on which our society is built, and the government could not care less.

That is why, like every other crisis facing our country, we will only start to repair our justice system when we succeed in changing our government.

So let the message go out loud and clear from this conference to a Tory government that treats the law with contempt and threatens the foundations of our society, your own era of impunity is over.

Labour is stronger than ever, more united than ever, more determined than ever, and you’d better believe that we are coming for you.