Sir Keir Starmer has told Kemi Badenoch to “get on the train to Solihull” and talk to workers at Jaguar Land Rover after she mocked his “tiny” US trade deal.
The Conservative leader said that the prime minister should “not over-egg the pudding” after Donald Trump agreed to bring down car tariffs from 27.5% to 10%, and scrap 10% tariffs on steel.
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Ms Badenoch said the UK is still in a “worse position” than before the levies were announced, telling PMQS: “I’m very happy to welcome these tiny tariffs.
“But the fact is, it has put us in a worse position than we were in March. He should not over-egg the pudding.”
She said that things are “getting worse” for businesses, with the ONS estimating there are 100,000 fewer jobs now than a year ago, even before the employer national insurance rise has kicked in.
Sir Keir hit back that she should “get the train to Solihull” and speak to workers at the JLR factory there and “tell them she would rip up the deal that protects their jobs”.
“When she’s done that, she might travel across to Scunthorpe and tell the steelworkers there that she’s going to rip up the deal that saves their jobs.
“And if she’s got time, go up to Scotland and talk to the whisky distilleries, tell them I should rip up the deal that’s creating 1200 jobs for them, boosting their exports, and then come back here next week and tell us what reaction she got.”
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Sir Keir is the first world leader to have secured a trade deal with Mr Trump since he announced the tariffs as part of a package of global measures.
For the UK, that included a baseline 10% levy on all goods going into the US, which remains in place.
Ministers have indicated that work is ongoing to remove remaining levies, but say what was secured is significant, as it saved thousands of jobs that were imminently at risk.
The deal came days after the UK and India struck an “ambitious” trade agreement that will slash tariffs on products such as whisky and gin.
And as Mr Trump said himself, the Tories spent years trying to strike a deal with Washington but it was only achieved “under this prime minister”.
But while the agreement has given Sir Keir a boost, it comes against a difficult economic backdrop at home.
Unemployment row
Official figures on Tuesday showed wage rises are slowing and there are fewer jobs on offer as employers grapple with higher costs.
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How good is the UK-US deal?
The Tories have blamed the government’s rise in employer national insurance, which they call a “jobs tax”, on the plight of British businesses, with Ms Badenoch repeatedly using PMQs to attack it.
Elsewhere in Wednesday’s exchange, she called on Sir Keir to promise that unemployment will be lower by this time next year, claiming it has gone up by 10% since the general election because of Labour’s policies.
This claim was later disputed by Labour MP Jake Richards in a point of order, who claimed the unemployment statistic was incorrect.
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The figure she cited is based on the number of unemployed people but does not take into account population growth, which is more consistent in tracking trends.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the unemployment rate, which measures working age people, is up from 4.3% to 4.5% since July 2024.
Sir Keir said Ms Badenoch “must be the only person left in the country who thinks the economy was booming after the last government”.
“We’ve created new jobs, record investment, trade deals that they tried, the India deal, I think they tried for eight years and failed. We did that deal. They talked about a US deal. We did that deal.
“A once great political party is sliding into brain-dead oblivion.”
