Theresa May will accuse politicians of sneering at the millions of ordinary people who backed Brexit, as she urges her party to seize a “new centre ground” and intervene more aggressively for the sake of working-class families.

In a withering attack at the Conservative conference on Wednesday, the prime minister will say: “Just listen to the way a lot of politicians and commentators talk about the public. They find their patriotism distasteful, their concerns about immigration parochial, their views about crime illiberal, their attachment to their job security inconvenient. They find the fact that more than 17 million people voted to leave the European Union simply bewildering.”

May will also use her centrepiece speech at the conference in Birmingham to signal a new direction under which a more muscular state will be used to step in to fix broken markets.

Speaking after sterling sunk to a 31-year-low, causing stock markets to soar, May will argue that the time has come to “reject the ideological templates provided by the socialist left and the libertarian right” and instead embrace a new centre ground.

“That’s what government’s about: action. It’s about doing something, not being someone. About identifying injustices, finding solutions, driving change. Taking, not shirking, the big decisions. Having the courage to see things through,” she will say.

The prime minister will launch a brutal attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, calling it “not just divided but divisive” and “determined to pit one against another, to pursue vendettas and settle scores”.

“Let’s have no more of Labour’s absurd belief that they have a monopoly on compassion. Let’s put an end to their sanctimonious pretence of moral superiority. Let’s make clear that they have given up the right to call themselves the party of the NHS, the party of the workers, the party of public servants.”

The speech comes as the head of May’s policy board in Downing Street warned of “anti-capitalist riots” if the government does not urgently reform the economic system – including with a more muscular state.

The Conservative MP George Freeman told an event at the conference: “We have got to have capitalism working more in partnership with the state. Responsible capitalism is completely essential if we are going to tackle the social justice agenda.”

David Davis, the secretary of state for Brexit. Photograph: David Gadd/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

And David Davis, the secretary of state for Brexit, compared May’s plans to the transformation in the 80s under Margaret Thatcher. “When we started, we didn’t really know how powerful the genie that we were unleashing was,” he said.

May dedicated Sunday’s speech to the issue of Brexit, announcing plans to trigger article 50 by the end of March and move European regulations into British law, in order to allow her space to focus on other issues in her final speech.

The central argument will be for free markets to be supported but for ministers to step in where they need repairing.

She will claim: “The state exists to provide what individual people, communities and markets cannot; and that we should employ the power of government for the good of the people.

“If we act to correct unfairness and injustice and put government at the service of ordinary working people, we can build that new united Britain in which everyone plays by the same rules, and in which the powerful and the privileged no longer ignore the interests of the people.”



The prime minister will underline policies announced during the week, including plans from the home secretary, Amber Rudd, for major restrictions on overseas students and a crackdown on work visas.

May will also point to a review of workers rights being chaired by Tony Blair’s former aide Matthew Taylor, education reforms aimed at boosting social mobility and a £5bn housing package.

Freeman argued that responsible capitalism was completely essential to tackle the social justice agenda: “We’ve got to have a capitalism working in partnership with the state.”

He said the Conservatives ought to “go into this territory that Labour have traditionally thought they occupied but go in there with Tory values, remembering why we believe in companies and markets and what they do”.



“If there are problems in recent capitalism, we should be the movement capable of calling it out and identifying it and helping business tackle it,” he said. “We need directors of companies who take their responsibilities seriously but are more than just obeyers of the law and leaders of good business.”



Freeman, who does not speak for the government but is at the heart of shaping new policy, argued that it was a shame to have lost Victorian social pressure that ostracised those who behaved badly.

Delegates on the third day of the Conservative party conference. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

“I think if Joe Chamberlain were here, he would say, you raise an eyebrow,” he said. “We’ve sort of lost the Victorian thing of the cultural criticism of bad practice. It might be legal, but it’s just wrong. We used to in this country, we championed it – you didn’t get invited to the club or you didn’t get invited to lunch, you just got the cold shoulder. And it meant something. We’ve completely abandoned that.”



The Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said he was not convinced by May’s message. “In her short spell as prime minister, Theresa May has led a Conservative Brexit government that wants to pull out of the single market, re-introduce grammar schools and use human beings as bargaining chips in trade negotiations,” he said.

“Only today the Conservatives indicated they want to force British firms to list all their foreign workers. These are all policies of a party that is reckless, divisive and uncaring.”

Meanwhile, Davis dismissed the idea that he and other prominent leave campaigners were put in charge of Brexit so they could be held responsible if it went wrong, saying “there will be plenty of blame to go round” if that were to happen.

Speaking on the fringes of the conference, the Brexit secretary said it was “conspiracy stuff” to believe May appointed him, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, with that in mind.

The comments came as Brexit campaigners welcomed the lack of an economic downturn predicted during the EU referendum campaign, but critics pointed to the falling value of sterling as cause for concern.

