British Labor leader promises 'a decade of national renewal'

Labor leader Keir Starmer has promised “a decade of national renewal” in his presentation as “premier in waiting” in Liverpool, despite the doubts that persist among the British about his plans and his lack of popular support.. 50% of voters recognize at this point that they do not know what the Labor leader's ideology is and only 34% think that the opposition party “is ready to govern”, according to a recent Ipsos poll.

Starmer, 61 years old, has proposed to follow the path marked by Tony Blair in the 1997 elections with a calculated turn towards the center, keeping the unions at bay and sending a message of “stability and growth” to companies, after the turbulent 13 years of the Tories marked by government crises and Brexit.

“People are looking to us because they want to heal the wounds, and we are going to heal them,” Starmer said in his keynote speech at the Labor Party's National Conference.. “People are looking at us because the challenges ahead require a modern state, and we are the modernizers. “People are looking to us because they want to build a new Britain, and we are the builders.”

Starmer was interrupted at the beginning by a protester who threw glitter at him – which remained on the politician's shoulders throughout the speech – and proclaimed “We demand green justice” and “Democracy led by citizens.”. The Labor leader reacted on the fly and simply said: “If you think it bothers me, you don't know me.”. The protester was detained by police officers.

Starmer presented himself as the recognizable face of “a changed Labor Party that is no longer the party of protest”. “Those days are behind us and we will never return,” he said, referring to his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.. “Now we are a party of service to the people, which puts the interests of the country first.”

The Labor leader redoubled his criticism of the Tories for their long decade of austerity and decline in public services, starting with the National Health System (NHS).. “What is broken will be repaired, what is in a dilapidated state will be rebuilt,” he said when announcing greater public spending on Health and Education, although putting economic growth ahead of tax increases.

Starmer also had the challenge of presenting himself as the son of a humble “tool maker” in Oxted, a lawyer specializing in human rights and director of the Public Prosecution Office, which earned him the distinction of Sir. Despite his activism as a young man on the radical left of the party (he was director of Socialist Alternatives) and his rise to the shadows with Jeremy Corbyn, who appointed him spokesperson for Brexit. One of his main challenges since he was elected Labor leader three years ago was to erase all traces of his predecessor and declare “zero tolerance” for antisemitism.

Corbyn, expelled from the parliamentary group and determined to run as an independent in 2024, has been walking around Liverpool these days in his capacity as a ghost of the recent past, responsible for Labor's biggest defeat in 84 years, in 2019.

The other ghost, present above all through his sympathizers and collaborators embedded in the Starmer ranks (Liz Kendall, Pat McFadden, Peter Kyle, Darren Jones), has been precisely that of Tony Blair, who has given his full blessing to the reforms undertaken by the Labor leader.

Starmer, however, has a mountain to climb to emulate Blair's electoral success in 1997.. To begin with, his unpopularity among the British (-14%) is not far from that of Premier Rishi Sunak (-30%). And it does not have an ideology or a label that serves as a shuttle, as happened with New Labor.

“A lack of clarity, doubts about his competence and a relatively unpopular leader” are three of the points weighing against Starmer, according to Srathclyde University analyst John Curtice, who highlights how the current lead of 20 points over the conservatives may be “fragile” with a year to go until the elections (Blair never dropped below 25 points).

Starmer's main challenge in his speech was precisely to dilute the persistent doubts about his capacity and character, also criticized for living off the income and mistakes of the Tories and not getting into the big issues.. Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's communications guru, has recommended him these days to be “bolder” and not be afraid of causing headlines, as when he proposed rewriting Boris Johnson's Brexit agreement.

In a nod to the red wall voters of industrial England, Starmer promised “an economy that works for everyone” and ends the feeling of “survival mode” in the most deprived areas of the country. And he extended the invitation to vote Labor “to the Tories who look with horror at how their party has descended into the murky waters of populism and conspiracies and has been left without arguments for economic change.”

Starmer harshly criticized Rishi Sunak's climate “reversal” and promised “full speed” to the push for renewables if he comes to power, with the creation of a public company, Great Britain Energy, based in Scotland (where the Labor Party aims to breaking the primacy of the Scottish National Party in the last two decades).