Doncaster Tory MP 'still smiling' as Rishi Sunak says he's 'absolutely committed' to north in Racecourse speech

The PM flew in from talks with US president Joe Biden at the White House to speak to Northern Conservatives at Doncaster Racecourse on Friday.

In the speech, the PM said he was ‘absolutely committed’ to the north and said Doncaster and Yorkshire were key to the Tories’ success at the next election.

Addressing the Northern Research Group Conference, which attracted a number of key party figures, Mr Sunak said there was “no route to electoral success” for the Conservatives without the North.

The Prime Minister, introduced as arriving on the “red eye to the red wall” after jetting back across the Atlantic, acknowledged the importance the former Labour heartlands, won by Boris Johnson in 2019, would play at the next election after dozens of traditionally Labour seats turned blue.

Mr Sunak, whose seat is in Yorkshire, said that his Government was “absolutely committed” to the North.

Declaring himself a “Prime Minister for the North”, he said: “We know that our majority runs through the North and that there is no route to electoral success without you.”

Mr Sunak said that his party believed in a “fair deal for the North” and said: “We’ve averted the predicted recession, but my ambition goes further than that.

“We need to grow the economy and I want the North to be at the heart of our economic growth.

“We will use our post-Brexit freedoms to create the most pro-innovation and pro-enterprise regulatory system on Earth.

“That will help us as we step up our efforts to attract businesses from around the world.”

Following Friday’s conference, Don Valley MP Nick Fletcher, who won his seat from Labour’s Caroline Flint at the 2019 election said: “I must confess I’m still smiling about having brought 400 key stakeholders to Doncaster including the Prime Minister who came to Doncaster straight from meeting the US President Joe Biden in the White House the previous day.

“I will always fight for Doncaster.”