Giving a keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton she vowed to "clean up the Tories' Brexit mess" as she claimed leaving the EU had played a key role in the petrol crisis shortages across the UK. Taking on Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Ms Reeves made her pitch to take charge of the Treasury's coffers after the next election.

       She accused the Richmond MP of being "missing in action" given the energy crisis, petrol station queues and supply chain delays.

       The shadow chancellor told delegates in Brighton: "This Government is incompetent, this Government is in denial, this Government is careless and chaotic, and they are responsible for this mess.

       "The Tories have lost control.

       "These problems have been exposed by the Government's Brexit deal, by their response to the pandemic and by a failure to plan for either."

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       Her remarks were met with cheers from Labour members in the hall and were applauded by Sir Keir Starmer who was sat on the stage throughout the speech.

       The shortage in fuel has been caused by panic buying after a small number of petrol stations were due to shut because of a shortage of HGV drivers to make deliveries.

       Critics of Brexit have claimed the ending of freedom of movement is responsible for the vacancies for lorry drivers.

       But Conservative MPs have dismissed the claims as "lazy" analysis pointing to similar shortages in HGV drivers in the EU and the US.

       Sir Iain Duncan Smith said in a newspaper column over the weekend: "This is a European-wide issue and the culprit is coronavirus.

       "The origins of this chronic shortage lie in the long-term implications of locking down so completely."

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       Tory backbencher Peter Bone added: “I don’t buy the idea that this has got anything to do with Brexit. Certainly Covid has played a part.

       "And obviously we’ve got the flexibility because of Brexit to fix any problems relating to driver shortages."

       "We’ve got complete flexibility now, as an independent sovereign company. We can increase the number of driving tests and equally we can decide who we want into the country and who we don’t want.

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       "I don't see how being in the EU would have improved the situation at all, it would have made matters worse."

       After attacking the Government's response to the fuel shortage, Ms Reeves went on to outline Labour's plan for the economy.

       Radical policies unveiled included scrapping business rates, hiking up taxes on the highest earners, and creating a new independent Office for Value for Money tasked with being the watchdog on public spending.

       She promised Labour would be "unapologetically pro-worker and unapologetically pro-business".

       "Our mission starts with the everyday economy.

       "With valuing and supporting the people, businesses and industries which kept Britain going before the pandemic, have done throughout, and will continue to do so," she said.

       "Labour will tax fairly, spend wisely, and get our economy firing on all cylinders.

       "Hard work met with fair reward."