Keir Starmer vows he’ll lead Labour into subsequent election as he slams ‘wasted’ time on rows
The Prime Minister hit out at time-wasting rows over party leadership and said bearing down on cost of living pressures clobbering families was his top priority
Keir Starmer talks about the cost of living ahead of budget
Keir Starmer has vowed he will lead Labour into the next general election as he came out fighting against speculation about his future.
The Prime Minister hit out at time-wasting rows over party leadership and said bearing down on cost of living pressures clobbering families was his top priority. It comes after a torrid week for the Government, when a bitter briefing war erupted over threats to his leadership, dismaying MPs and putting Labour infighting at the top of the news agenda.
But Mr Starmer insisted he was going nowhere, as he sat down with the Mirror in Downing Street on Monday. Asked if he would lead Labour into the next election, he said: “Yes, I will. Let me be really clear – every minute that’s not spent talking about and dealing with the cost of living is a minute wasted of the political work of this Government.
“That’s my response to last week. I remain utterly focused on what matters to me most, which is bearing down on the cost of living and making people feel better off. I’m very conscious of the fact that people want to get on in life, they want to progress, they want more money in their pocket to do the things that matter to them.
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“Give their kids a treat, go out for a meal, have a holiday, get on and progress, and feel safe and secure. These are human things that matter hugely to me in terms of how people feel about themselves, their family and their community. Everything we’re doing is to make them better off, and every minute we waste on other issues is a minute we’re not bearing down on that.”
His comments come ahead of a make-or-break Budget next week, as Rachel Reeves scrambles to fill a massive black hole in the public finances. The Chancellor had been heavily signalling that she would put up income tax in a breach of Labour’s manifesto commitment. But last week it emerged that she had abandoned the plan after better than expected forecasts, in a move that triggered market turmoil.
Mr Starmer promised that voters would feel better off by the end of this Parliament and in a message to his MPs, vowed it would be “a Labour Budget with Labour values right through it”.
“For so many people, the cost of living is the number one issue, whether they feel better off, whether they can make ends meet, ” he said. “That really matters to me, it matters to this Government. When I was growing up, we didn’t have enough money, and sometimes we couldn’t pay the bills. I know what it feels like to be sitting around your kitchen table worrying about that.”
Several announcements are understood to be coming ahead of the Budget to help put more cash in people’s pockets. Prescription charges are expected to be frozen for another year for millions of people, keeping it at £9.90 for a single item.
The PM said: “We’ve had a freeze in place, which is really important, and you can expect more on that in the coming days. But I think I’d hope you’ve got a strong sense of where I’m coming from on this. For families across the country, this [the cost of living] is the single most important issue.”
Free breakfast clubs for primary schools will also be rolled out further, with a focus on setting them up in the most deprived schools. “Breakfast clubs will be where they’re most needed,” Mr Starmer said.
“I can’t tell you for children how much of a game changer this is in terms of their ability to learn. Their life chances are affected by whether they get a decent breakfast in the morning. For parents and carers, you will know through your readers and others, being able to drop off early and get to work earlier does mean more income so that’s really important. It’s a few 100 pounds, but it makes a difference to so many families that are trying to make ends meet.”
His comments came as the Government unveiled hardline plans to overhaul the asylum system, which have been met with alarm by many Labour MPs. The PM defended the blueprint, saying: “We inherited a broken asylum system just as we inherited a broken economy, broken public services, a broken NHS. So we have got to pick it up and fix it.
“We need to make sure there’s a consensus on this, that people have confidence in our asylum system, and the truth is that we need to stop people arriving who shouldn’t be here, and we need to return those who are found not to be genuine refugees.”
He insisted Labour wasn’t trying to outdo Nigel Farage’s toxic stance on immigration. “Reform do not have any answers to the question, to the challenges this country faces,” he said. “They feed off grievance. They want problems to persist, and they are driven by a toxic division that will tear our country apart. That’s why I’m really clear, there are two paths for our country.
“Patriotic national renewal, with a Labour Party and a Labour Government is bearing down on the cost of living and actually taking the measures that are going to change the lives of millions of families, doing the hard yards of governing, or the toxic division of Reform and their like. That path is built on grievance, they don’t have any serious answers, and it’s absolutely important we expose them for what they are, which is peddlers of snake oil.”
