Tom Tugendhat will brand Labour “selfish, greedy socialists” on Wednesday as he uses his Tory conference speech to attack Sir Keir Starmer.

The former security minister will say that the Government is already “rudderless” just months after taking power in a landslide election victory.

Addressing the party faithful in Birmingham, he will also warn that five years of Labour will mean “higher taxes, more regulation, more control”.

He will say that the Conservatives must fight back by championing “freedom”, but will warn they can only do so if they end their internal squabbling.

Mr Tugendhat will make the remarks at the end of a four-day conference which has seen the Tory leadership contenders repeatedly clash.

Each candidate will deliver a 20-minute address to members on Wednesday, with Mr Tugendhat going first after positions were drawn by lots.

He will say: “Labour have told us who they are. They are rudderless, selfish, and greedy. They are taking us back to the 70s and the politics of division.

“Socialism – higher taxes, more regulation, more control. The lowest common denominator, trashing hopes and dreams.”

Outsider in leadership race

Mr Tugendhat is widely seen as an outsider to reach the final two of the leadership contest when the candidates are whittled down on Oct 10.

He came joint bottom in the last ballot of MPs, held in mid-September, with both he and James Cleverly winning the backing of 21 colleagues.

But figures within his camp were bullish about his chances and said he had “momentum” behind him after a good conference.

In his speech Mr Tugendhat will decry the “petty point scoring” that has blighted the Tories and say the country is “crying out for leadership”.

“We have heard platitudes not substance in this campaign. Too much about personality and not enough about principle,” he will tell delegates.

“Too much about change without saying how. I am standing before you today because I’ve had enough of the lack of substance, the lack of principle, the lack of clarity.”

Mr Tugendhat will call for an end to “talking our country down” and tell supporters: “I want to make you proud to vote Conservative again.”

‘Miliband trying to destroy country’

The speech will come after he used fringe events at the conference to attack Labour’s record on net zero and its handling of the crisis in the Middle East.

He warned that Ed Miliband was “trying to destroy this country” with his plans to plaster pylons across the countryside of England.

At a session organised by the Onward think tank, he said the Energy Secretary was “the worst secretary of state this country has seen since Lord North”.

“Not only is he going to close down important industries in Aberdeen and Teesside, but he’s actually going to destroy the opportunity for growth and employment in this country and send jobs to China,” he said.

“So he’s going to make us economically weaker, energy security is going to be undermined, agricultural security is going to be undermined, and our national security is going to be undermined.”

Middle East conflict

The former security minister also criticised the Government’s “incredibly bad” handling of the conflicts between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah.

He said that Sir Keir had tried to “ride both horses” by stopping some arms sales to Israel but also being “vaguely condemnatory of terrorism”.

“That is a remarkably unwise thing to do,” he said.

David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, has “made Britain irrelevant in Middle Eastern diplomacy by the way he’s conducted himself”, Mr Tugendhat added.

He will use his speech to set out his plans to boost economic growth, enhance housebuilding, and reduce Britain’s dependence on migrant workers.

Law and order

Mr Tugendhat is also expected to address law and order after backing the use of stop and search to tackle the knife crime epidemic blighting Britain’s streets.

Ahead of his conference address he accused opponents of the tactic, which heavily impacts young black men, of the “tacit racism, of low expectations”.

He said: “I’m on the side of the mother who, when her son goes out, wants to make sure that he comes home that night and she doesn’t have to go and identify his body.

“That’s why I’m on the side of the women who know that when their son is being searched, it is actually for his protection, not just for the wider society.

“I’ve spoken to many families where the parents understand what policing is for and they hate the tacit racism of low expectation that suggests it is culturally normal for a certain group within our community to be behaving differently from others.

“It isn’t, we’re all British. Everybody of every culture and every creed deserves the same protection from the British law as everyone else.”

Mr Tugendhat also said Tory governments and not the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) were to blame for record levels of migration to Britain.

Whether to leave the ECHR has become a key dividing line in the leadership campaign, but he said it would be better to reform it.