Communities will be given new powers to take over pubs, football clubs and historic buildings if Labour is elected, it was announced today.
Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy told The Mirror that Tory pledges to level up Britain are "dead" - but promised a raft of measures if the government is booted out.
She accused leadership contenders of "scrambling to pick up the mantle of Margaret Thatcher" - something she said "sent shivers down the spines" of people across Northern England, Wales and Scotland.
Ms Nandy unveiled a new Community Right to buy, giving locals first refusal on assets that matter to them - as well as introducing licensing systems to clampdown on second home owners turning areas into "ghost towns".
She said: "Levelling up is dead as far as the Conservative Party are concerned, the Tory leadership contest has sounded the death knell for it.
"But in truth it was killed off a long time ago by a Prime Minister who's deeply disinterested and a Chancellor that didn't believe that anywhere outside London and the South East had a contribution to make to the future of Britain.
"Levelling up isn't dead for millions of people who in 2018 voted for change, the Tories aren't going to deliver on it but Labour will."
Ms Nandy said she was inspired by the near-collapse of Wigan Athletic in her constituency, when locals were unable to secure the funds required to rescue the football club.
Under Labour's plans a bulked-up Community Ownership Fund will give groups access to this, as well as the right to buy assets without competition.
The plans also include the right to force a sale of land or buildings that fall into significant disrepair.
Ms Nandy said said: "We had the right to buy the club but rights on paper don't mean much when you don't have money and the cost was £16m. Wigan isn't the sort of town where you find £16 million down the back of a sofa.
"We couldn't buy the club, and without the efforts of some incredible people including the local council we'd have lost the club I think."
She likened the scramble to cash to "Hunger Games", stating: "What we're planning to do is get assets back into communities so they can generate income themselves.
"What we really want to do is end the system where towns, cities and communities are having to compete Hunger Games-style for grants doled out by ministers in Whitehall that can live or die depending on which administration is in office.
"Just three weeks ago we had a Chancellor who was promising to level up the country, now that same guy is promising to govern like Thatcher."
Speaking ahead of a speech at the Forum Music Centre in Darlington - a music venue that was itself saved by community intervention - Ms Nandy said: "The community was able to access a grant under a programme established by the last Labour government before it was axed by the coalition they were able to save the Forum and go on then to invest in it in order to ensure it became better.
"It hasn't just survived, it's thrived."
The shadow minister said that places like Darlington - which switched from Labour to Tory in the 2019 election - had been let down by Boris Johnson's government, and said rebuilding trust was crucial.
"We set about doing that as soon as we lost the last General Election, putting places like Darlington back at the centre of the national conversation," she said.
And she said the Tory leadership race had put these issues in sharp focus.
"There's no candidate on the ballot paper for Tory leadership that poses a problem for Labour, but there are five candidates who pose a problem for the country," she said.
"Not one of them has focused on levelling up and the cost of living crisis, they haven't got any plan to get growth back into the economy, every single one of them has been scrambling to pick up the mantle of Margaret Thatcher.
"This has sent the shivers down the spine of many people in the North of England, Wales and Scotland and many other parts of Britain.
"That's why not a single one of them is fit to hold office, and why Labour has been calling for a General Election.
"The man currently in Downing Street - if he's turning up for work - who has been deemed by his own colleagues as not fit to hold office. We can't go on like this, we need a complete change of approach."
Ms Nandy described yesterday's announcements as a "first step" of Labour's levelling up agenda, saying more measures would be announced at the party conference in September.
In her speech she said: "This is the first step on the way to greater financial autonomy for our towns, villages and cities. The only conditions attached are that it must raise revenue to be used and passed down through the generations, and that it must be driven by the wishes of the community, held in common and used for the common good."
Describing the move to clamp down on second home owners, she said: "With a stronger licensing system, communities will be able to reap the rewards of thriving tourism, while ending the scourge of communities becoming ghost towns when holidays end, and end people being priced out of their own neighbourhoods just for homes to stand empty for months on end."
She said a similar system has been announced by Labour's Mark Drakeford in Wales earlier this month.
Ms Nandy told the audience in Darlington: "A great national effort is needed to rebuild our country so we can weather the coming storms.
"The challenges will test our nerve. There are no simple solutions. But I am confident we can meet them."
