LABOUR leadership candidate Sir Keir Starmer has promised to unite the party, rebuild trust with voters and take personal responsibility for anti-Semitism if he is elected.

He was invited by former Bury North MP James Frith to speak to party members, supporters and other voters at the Mosses Centre on Tuesday evening.

In an exclusive interview with the Bury Times, Sir Keir was asked why Labour is losing votes in working class communities like Radcliffe and Farnworth.

He said: “From my discussions with voters and communities that have decided to vote for other parties, there are a variety of reasons that they left us and some of this has been happening over a period of time. Taken together, I think there was a loss of trust in the Labour Party as a force for good and a force for change.

"I think as leader of the Labour Party I would unite the party but that does need to be throughout the party. I’d certainly listen to our local councillors much more, I think there’s far too much distance between the leader of the Labour Party and our local councillors. There’s a lot that we can learn by listening to them.

"So, it’s closing that gap, but it’s also making sure that the Labour Party is the party that people think, ‘this is the party that is spelling out a better future for me, it’s relevant to my life and I’m prepared to trust them’."

The London MP, who visited 44 constituencies during the General Election campaign, said Labour's manifesto was "overloaded" and blamed Brexit, in part, for the "devastating" result.

But the shadow Brexit secretary defended his party's policy on leaving the European Union which he said was intended to "protect" communities.

He said: “I think we need to accept that whichever side of the argument we were on, that the Leave-Remain argument is over. We will be leaving the EU very shortly.

"Therefore, the focus has to be on what that future relationship is like and it needs to be one that protects communities, protects jobs, particularly in our manufacturing base. Because I think whether people voted to Leave or Remain, they certainly didn’t vote to lose jobs or to have any damage done to their communities."

Sir Keir was asked by a Jewish member of the audience, who had left the Labour Party but recently rejoined, what he would do to eradicate anti-Semitism.

He apologised and welcomed her back to the party before pledging to take personal responsibility over the issue.

But the Bury Times challenged him, asking why voters should trust him to tackle anti-Semitism given that he stood by the Labour leadership as a member of the shadow cabinet.

He said: “I spoke out about it publicly both on the Today programme and on the Andrew Marr show. I argued for a wider definition of anti-Semitism, for rule changes and I argued in the shadow cabinet. I don’t think this is complicated. If you’re anti-Semitic, you should not be in the Labour Party.

"What I would do as leader of the Labour Party is take personal responsibility for this to ensure that I have oversight over what was going on. I don’t want any of our activists or our members ever to knock on a door in a future election and be met by the response that people usually voted Labour but wouldn’t this time because of anti-Semitism. My test on this is whether those who have left our party because of anti-Semitism feel that they are comfortable in returning."