Sir Keir Starmer steadied his party on Tuesday after a turbulent week for Labour and his leadership, reminding activists they have a mandate to reshape Britain in a simple rallying message: “We won.”
The prime minister pledged to “face the storm” from unpopular decisions and borrowed the Tory austerity language of David Cameron and George Osborne as he told the party’s annual conference in Liverpool – and the wider country – that “we’re all in this together”.
Set against criticism over winter fuel payment cuts for pensioners, gifts for him, his wife and his ministers, and a civil war in Downing Street, Sir Keir sort to silence doubters with a long-term vision. It came as:
- He prepared to fly to the UN amid crises in Ukraine and the Middle East.
- He promised “homes for heroes” to help veterans get a place to live.
- His justice secretary pledged to cut the number of women in prison.
- And he unveiled a Hillsborough Law to end the scandal of cover-ups.
Despite an ovation from the crowd, Sir Keir was briefly interrupted by a pro-Palestinian protester angry about child deaths in Gaza – a timely reminder that he has not won over all of his critics.
He will also be absent on Wednesday when a union-led motion on winter fuel payment cuts will be debated on the floor of the conference.
But some senior ministers, led by Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, have been urging Sir Keir to remind Labour it has earned the right to rule; it was advice the prime minister seems to have taken on board.
He reminded the activist who interrupted his speech of Labour’s irrelevance during the Jeremy Corbyn years and the hard road to victory in July’s election.
“People said we were going too far,” he said. “People said we were going too fast. They didn’t want to face the country. They wanted to go back to a comfort zone, take the easier road to nowhere, duck the challenge of change. But we stood firm, conference. We stood together… and we won.
“So take pride in your victory. But never forget that this opportunity is only here because we changed the party.”
Sir Keir insisted Labour must “face the storm” in order to make a “Britain built to last” as he warned of further tough decisions as he “cleared out the Tory rot”.
To a muted response from the crowd, he warned about changes to come: “If they were popular, they’d be easy. But the cost of filling that black hole in our public finances, that will be shared fairly. We will get the welfare bill down because we will tackle long-term sickness and support people back to work.”
Addressing criticism of the decision to means-test winter fuel payments, he said he understood concerns. “I get that,” he said. “As I say, if this path were popular or easy we would have walked it already.”
But he added: “Stabilising our economy is the first step of this long-term plan – [it is] the only way we can keep prices low, cut NHS waiting lists and secure the triple lock so that every pensioner in this country, every pensioner, will be better off with Labour.”
He said decisions such as squeezing winter fuel payments or releasing prisoners early were due to the state the Tories left the country in. “Do not forget what they did and do not let them attempt to shift the blame because the state of our country is on them,” he said.
He said for home ownership to be a “credible aspiration” for all, then “every community” will have to contribute by building more homes, he said.
And to tackle illegal migration “we can’t pretend there’s a magical process that allows you to return people here unlawfully without accepting that process will also grant some people asylum”.
He added: “If we want to be serious about levelling up, then we must be proud to be the party of wealth creation. Unashamed to partner with the private sector.”
There were loud cheers when he condemned the far-right riots of the summer and racism in Britain.
But Sir Keir also took on concerns about levels of immigration, insisting that British workers could be trained to reduce reliance on overseas labour.
In the wake of the riots this summer, Sir Keir said people with “legitimate” concerns about immigration were not responsible for the “violent thuggery” unleased on streets across the country.
Echoing the Brexit campaign slogan, he said that “taking back control is a Labour argument” because government action was the way to deal with the “great forces that affect your community – whether that’s migration, climate change, law and order or security at work”.
Addressing unease within Labour about the doom-laden messaging from ministers over the state of the country, Sir Keir said: “We will turn our collar up and face the storm. We will rise above the challenges that we’ve inherited.
“Because this is a country with fairness in the water, that believes in justice, and that wants working people to be respected.”