Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a make-or-break speech as he battles to save his premiership after Labour suffered heavy losses in elections across Britain
The election results last week were tough, very tough.
We lost some brilliant Labour representatives. That hurts, and it should hurt. I get it, I feel and I take responsibility. But it’s not just about taking responsibility for the result. It’s about taking responsibility to explain how as a political and electoral force, we will be better and do better in the months and years ahead.
Because we are not just facing dangerous times, but dangerous opponents, very dangerous opponents. This hurts, not just because Labour has done badly, but because if we don’t get this right, our country will go down a very dark path.
So just as I take responsibility for the results, I also take responsibility for delivering the change that we promised for a stronger and fairer Britain that we must build. I take responsibility for navigating us through a world that is more dangerous than at any time in my life, and I take responsibility for not walking away, not plunging our country into chaos as the Tories did time and again, chaos that did lasting damage to this country.
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A Labour government would never be forgiven for inflicting that on our country again. I know that people are frustrated, frustrated by politics and some people frustrated with me. I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will.
So let me start on a personal note. Like every Prime Minister, I’ve learned a lot in the first two years. In terms of the policy challenges that our country faces, incremental change won’t cut it on growth, defence, Europe, energy.
We need a bigger response than we anticipated in 2024 because these are not ordinary times, and this is a political challenge, just as much as it’s a policy challenge. Delivery is, of course, essential, but it’s not sufficient on its own to address the frustration that voters feel.
We’re battling Reform and the Greens. But it’s deeper, we’re battling the despair on which they prey, despair that they exploit and amplify. And so analysis matters, but argument matters more. Evidence matters, but so too does emotion.
Stories beat spreadsheets. People need hope. So we will face up to the big challenges, and we will make the big argument, the Labour case that only Labour values and Labour policies can ensure our country not only weathers these storms, but emerges stronger and fairer.
And the Labour case that neither Nigel Farage nor Zack Polanski offers our country – the serious progressive leadership that these times demand. Of course, like every government, we’ve made mistakes, but we got the big political choices right. If we’d listened to the advice of other parties, right now we’d be stuck in a stand up with Iran and we dragged into a war that is not in our interest, and I will never do that.
We have invested in our public services, in people, in the pride of Britain’s, communities, difficult decisions funded that. But now NHS waiting lists are coming down. Child poverty is coming down. Immigration is coming, and we are rebuilding from the ground up.
They were the right calls. And most of all, we stabilized the economy. The fundamentals are sound, and that matters, because it puts us in a better place to come out of the conflict in Iran stronger and fairer, and for living standards to improve after two decades of stagnation.
But that’s not enough, clearly, no, for the British people – tired of a status quo that has failed them – change cannot come quickly enough. Truth be told, I’m not sure that they believe that we care. I’m not sure they believe that we see their lives.
That’s tough to say. When you come from a working class background like me, it’s hard to hear that, because I do know what it’s like to struggle and to strive. But what I take from it is that I’ve spent too much time talking about what I’m doing for working people, and not enough time talking about why or who I stand for.
Because I can see how hard life has been during these decades of crisis. I can see that very clearly. My late brother Nick spent all his other life going from one job to the next. The status quo did not work for him. My sister is a carer working long hours on low pay year after year after year. She didn’t even get sick pay in the pandemic. The status quo did not work for her.
For too long, we’ve ignored people like that, and there are millions of people in that boat. Millions of people who don’t get the dignity, the respect, the chance that we deserve to go as far as their talent and effort should take them. Millions of people held back because the status quo in this country does not work for them. I am fighting for them. We are fighting for them. I am their Prime Minister, and this is their government.
Because I know whose side I am. I’m on the side of working people, just like my sister, people who work harder and harder, but who worry about the cost of living. They’re not asking for the world. They just want to do the best for their kids. They want their town centres, the places they care about to thrive, their public services to work, and people in power to see their problems.
And right now they’re worried sick. They turn on the TV, they see bombs falling. They go to the petrol station and see prices rising, and they think, how is this happening to us again? They say, ‘how can I be paying the price for a war thousands of miles away that I don’t support, that Britain is involved in? And it’s not a new thing. Is it?
For two decades, our country has been buffeted by crisis after crisis – the 2008 financial crash, the Tory austerity that followed it, Brexit, Covid, the Ukraine war. On and on it goes. The response is always the same. A desperate attempt to get back to the status quo, a status quo that failed working people time and again.
Our response this time must be different, a complete break. We must make this country strong. Take control of our economic security, our energy security and defence security, and we must make this country fairer. Strength through fairness, that is my compass in this world. In the coming days, you will see those values written large in the King’s speech, and you will see hope, and urgency and exactly whose side we’re on reflected in everything we say and everything we do.
So let me give you three examples today. Starting with British Steel, because what we did in Scunthorpe last year is one of the proudest things we have done in government. That plant was hours away from closure, and that is thousands of jobs gone. An entire region decimated. Britain’s security exposed, and so we acted. Parliament was in recess, but it didn’t matter. As a united Labour Party, we passed emergency legislation and retook control.
We must bring that same urgency to everything, starting quickly with Scunthorpe, because steel is the ultimate sovereign capability. Strong nations in a world like this need to make steel. That’s why we’re backing steel in Port Talbot and across the UK. But in Scunthorpe, we’ve been negotiating with the current owner, and commercial sales has not been possible.
Now a public interest test could be met. So I can announce that legislation will be brought forward this week to give the government powers – subject to that public interest test – to take full public ownership of British Steel. Public ownership in the public interest. Urgent government on the side of working people. Making Britain’s stronger with the hope of industrial renewal. That is a Labour choice.
The second example, Europe. And I’m sorry, but I need to take a bit of a detour on this. Because I want to remind you what Nigel Farage said about Brexit. He said it would make us richer, wrong. It made us poorer. He said it would reduce migration, wrong. Migration went through the roof. He said it would make us more secure, wrong again. It made us weaker. He took Britain for a ride, and unlike the Tories, actually, at least had to face up to it.
He just fled the scene. And now he’ll talk about almost anything other than the consequences of the one policy he actually delivered. Because he’s not just a grifter, he is a chancer. And so, at the next EU summit I will set a new direction for Britain. The last government was defined by breaking our relationship with Europe. This Labour government will be defined by rebuilding our relationship with Europe by putting Britain at the heart of Europe so that we are stronger on the economy, stronger on trade, stronger on defence, you name it.
Because standing shoulder to shoulder with the countries that most share our interests, our values, and our enemies, that is the right choice for Britain. That is the Labour choice. And for our young people, also something more. Because Brexit snatched away their ability to work, to study, and to live easily in Europe.
That’s why I’m proud we restored the Erasmus scheme. But I want to go further. I want to make a better offer for our young people. Restore that hope, that freedom… that sense of possibility. And so I want an ambitious youth experience scheme to be at the heart of our new arrangement with the EU. So that our young people can work and study and live in Europe, a symbol of a stronger relationship, and a fairer future, with our closest allies. That is the Labour choice.
And third? The greatest hope. The hope that every parent has. They better future for their children. And I want parents to feel that that is shared by their government. Now, my parents… Don’t worry. I’m not going there. But they didn’t have a lot of money. And my mum was seriously ill for almost all of her life. But when they were in their later years, reflecting on what gave their life meaning, I could see that, as well as their hope in us, their kids, what comforted them was the idea that they had contributed to a Britain that was getting better for young people. That kids now had a better opportunity than they did.
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And so I have always been driven by the idea that every child should go as far as their talent or effort takes them. It’s a beautiful idea. Shared widely across this country. We tell ourselves stories about it don’t we? Stories not unlike mine about the working class kids who do make it. And I don’t blame people for telling those stories. It’s important to tell those stories. But it’s not everyone. Is it?
So when I say, every child should have the opportunity to go as far as their talent or effort takes them, I mean every child. I mean, the kids who are growing up in poverty, the kids who have special educational needs, the kids who can’t get a job. And the kids who are ignored, frankly, because society often only puts those who go to university on a pedestal. We don’t really see anything else as success. And that is wrong. Deeply wrong.
So we will go much further on our investment in apprenticeships, in technical excellence colleges, in special educational needs. We will make sure that every young person struggling to find a job will get a guaranteed offer of a job, training, or work placement.
And we will go much further with our Pride in Place Programme, back the millions of people who give their time and their effort to young people in their community. We will back them not just with money, but with power. And we will make sure that kids whose talent lies with their hands, kids who go to college, kids ignored by the status quo, because politicians kids don’t go there. They will finally get the respect that they deserve in a stronger fairer Britain. That is the Labour choice. These are just a few examples, but they show the urgency in hope in our direction.
They show the Labour values we will be guided for. And they show, frankly, the lessons that we will learn. Now, other parties will draw different lessons.
In fact, they already are. They want more grievance politics, more division, more pointing at Britain’s problems. Looking not for solutions but for someone to blame. Now, that’s fine, if it’s me, if it’s politicians, that’s the job. But increasingly, it’s not. It’s other people in this country. And I don’t think that’s British.
That is not the decency and respect that we are known for. But it’s here. That politics is with us now. And you’ll see it again on Saturday at a march designed to confront and intimidate this diverse city and this diverse country. That is why this labour government will block far right agitators from travelling to Britain for that event.
Because we will not allow people to come to the UK… and spread hate on our streets. This is nothing less than a battle for the soul of our nation. And I want to be crystal clear about how we will win it. Because we cannot win as a weaker version of Reform or the Greens, we can only win as a stronger version of Labour, a mainstream party of power, not protest.
And I also want to be really clear on this, because I will never stop fighting for the decent, respectful, diverse country that I love, I will never give up on the hope we can unlock in this country. The hope of renters for security in their home, of workers for fairness at work, for public services, free from austerity.
The hope of European solidarity, of community pride, of the people who paint over the graffiti that is racist. A country taking control of its future. Our spirit unchanged, our resolve unbroken, the hope of a country that can and will become a stronger, fairer Britain. That is the hope I’m fighting for. That is the hope we are fighting for. That is the Labour choice. Thank you very much.