UPDATE - UK premier pledges change of direction to heal UK economy

UPDATES WITH MORE QUOTES BY UK PRIME MINISTER

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) - The British prime minister on Wednesday pledged to embark on a new change of direction “that has been long overdue in the UK economy.”

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Boris Johnson said the country will “not be going back to the same old broken model -- with low wages, low growth, and low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration.”

"The answer to the present stresses and strains, which are mainly a function of growth and economic revival, is not to reach for the same old lever of uncontrolled migration to keep wages low,” he said.

"The answer is to control immigration to allow people of talent to come to this country but not to use immigration as an excuse for failure to invest in people, in skills, and in the equipment or machinery they need to do their jobs."

The UK is on the path of a "new direction" that would see "high wage, high skill, high productivity and […] low tax economy."

Johnson said the UK has “one of the most imbalanced societies and lopsided economies of all the richer countries.”

"It is not just that there is a gap between London and the southeast and the rest of the country, there are aching gaps within the regions themselves,” he noted, adding that there is "no reason why the inhabitants of one part of the country should be geographically fated to be poorer than others."

Leveling up "works for the whole country" is a "right and responsible policy," he also said.

"It helps to take the pressure off parts of the overheating southeast, while simultaneously offering hope and opportunity to those areas that have felt left behind."

He said leveling up is the greatest project that any government would take on.

- Public finances

The British premier said there is a "huge hole" in the public finances due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We spent £407 billion (nearly $552.5 billion) on COVID support and our debt now stands at over £2 trillion," he added.

Speaking on the national health service waiting list caused by the pandemic, he said: "Waiting lists will almost certainly go up before they come down,” noting that his government will create funding to sort this problem.

"I can tell you something (former Prime Minister) Margaret Thatcher would not have ignored this meteorite that has just crashed through the public finances.”

"She would have wagged her finger and said that more borrowing now is just higher interest rates and even higher taxes later."

Johnson said he aimed "to get on with our job of uniting and leveling up across the UK."

- Crime

Also speaking on crime in the country, Johnson said leveling up also means fighting crime, putting more police out on the beat, toughening sentences, and "rolling up the county lines drugs networks."

"To decriminalize hard drugs, to let the gangsters off with a caution. An answer that is straight from the powder rooms of the north London dinner parties and nothing to do with the real needs of this country."

The prime minister then joked that the crime rate has been falling "and not just because we took the precaution of locking up the public."

- Migration flow from Afghanistan

“Speaking as the great-grandson of a Turk who fled in fear of his life, I know that this country is a beacon of light and hope for people around the world, providing they come here legally," Johnson said, referring to his great-grandfather Ali Kemal, an Ottoman minister who fled to the UK during the final years of the state.

Johnson said the UK will welcome refugees from Afghanistan as the government has pledged to receive 20,000 refugees from the country, but also pledged to tackle human trafficking.

- 'Brexit freedoms'

Johnson also said his government will use "Brexit freedoms to do things differently."

"We will fulfill our ambition of becoming a science superpower," he said, referring to gene editing, data management, and artificial intelligence.

He added that Brexit also allowed the UK to sign the AUKUS deal, adding that the deal is "simply a recognition of the reality that the world is tilting on its economic axis."