Keir Starmer has made fun of “weak” Rishi Sunak for having “lost control” of his party to the “tin-foil hat’ brigade of right-wing Tory MPs.
The Labour leader attacked the prime minister during PMQs for not disciplining Liz Truss after she failed to condemn far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Starmer also accused Sunak of “dancing” to Nigel Farage’s tune rather than standing up to him.
“At what point did his party give up on governing and become the political wing of the flat-Earth society?” Starmer asked.
During the fiesty exchanges, Sunak accused Starmer of being “spineless, hopeless and utterly shameless” and said Labour was “mired in hate”.
Appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in Washington last week, Truss failed to challenge a description of Robinson as a “hero”.
Labour has demanded that Sunak suspend his predecessor from the Tory Party.
Starmer said today: “Why is he allowing her to stand as a Tory MP at the next election?
“The reason he is letting her stand is because he’s too weak to do anything about it. It’s the story of his leadership.”
Sunak also dodged the question when asked if he would welcome Farage “into the Tory fold”.
It comes after HuffPost UK revealed Labour officials are “war gaming” the possibility of Farage becoming Tory Party leader in a right-wing coup.
Starmer said: “The truth is these are no longer the Tories your parents voted for and the pubic can see it.
“The prime minister has lost control of his party to the hoards... of malcontents.
“The tinfoil hat brigade over there, the extremists who wreck the economy all lining up to undermine him, humiliate him and eventually to get rid of him.”
He added: “When will he ever stand up to them and end the pathetic spectacle of a Tory party that used to try and beat Nigel Farage now giving up and dancing to his tune instead.”
Tomorrow voters go to the polls in the Rochdale by-election, but Labour is not supporting a candidate after it was stuck with someone who was revealed to have pushed anti-Israeli conspiracy theories.
Sunak told the Commons the voters would have “a choice of three former Labour candidates, two of which are anti-semites”.
“We expel anti-semites, he makes them Labour candidates,” the prime minister added.