Starmer Triggers Labour Alarm After Early Reset Bid Falls Flat

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(Bloomberg) — Keir Starmer is facing calls from across his Labor Party for bolder policies and clearer messaging to reconnect with voters, after a major speech aimed at restarting his faltering UK premiership this week.

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Prime Minister and Treasurer Rachel Reeves has drawn mounting criticism over what ministers, aides and lawmakers have privately described as a disappointing five months in office. The moment Starmer returned last Thursday, including six “milestones” designed to be tools to measure the government’s progress, caused further anxiety and confusion about his strategy.

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Party figures from a wide range of factions – veterans of Tony Blair’s era, Starmer allies and lawmakers from the party’s left – said the public mood was sour. Several Labor MPs and aides told Bloomberg they were surprised by how poorly Starmer and Reeves performed, and questioned whether they even had a plan for power or a way to deliver it.

The rhetoric’s bumpy landing prompted some Labor insiders to wonder whether Starmer and Reeves would survive until the next election – a suggestion that would have been unfathomable just a few months ago.

Although there were warning signs in Labour’s landslide election victory in July, which achieved a huge parliamentary majority despite relatively low public support, the government’s early missteps remain striking. Reeves’ proposed tax hike budget, which has angered business groups, farmers and retirees, came after she was accused of undermining growth with her doom-laden rhetoric.

This was the last thing Labor needed, especially with Starmer’s popularity in the polls plummeting and the Prime Minister struggling to move past allegations of nepotism and the resignations of his top aide and a member of the Cabinet.

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To be sure, Starmer’s allies counter that it is still early in his five-year term, and that his parliamentary majority will allow him to do things that change the narrative. People close to the prime minister said the Conservatives had left an unenviable legacy, including unfunded spending commitments, record immigration, faltering health services and prison overcrowding, forcing the government to make the politically toxic decision to release some prisoners early.

In his speech, Starmer stuck to his message of “fixing the foundations” and restoring economic stability as a prerequisite for ramping up more exciting matters such as infrastructure spending and housing construction.

“We made very difficult budget decisions and we did them early, and we succeeded in stabilizing the economy,” Starmer said in an interview with the BBC broadcast on Friday. Referring to one of his “milestones” in improving living standards, he said: “I want people to feel better immediately – to feel better in that they have more money in their pockets, and to feel better in that they have a safe guarantee.” A job that they know is guaranteed to give them the money they need.

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However, for many in Labour, the speech was an example of a managerialism and technocratic tone that frustrated even some of Starmer’s supporters.

An ally of Blair, who won the election three times, said that Starmer risked repeating the mistakes of Joe Biden and US Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by not taking voters with him. Emmanuel Macron’s difficulties in France underscore the danger of being seen as out of touch with reality, this person said. In the United Kingdom, Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage is eager to emulate the achievements of his friend Donald Trump.

This person dismissed Starmer’s speech as a jumble of words, and said the Prime Minister did not seem to understand that a key part of the job was communication, not just management. They expressed despair over the various “tasks”, “first steps”, “priorities”, and now “milestones” which they said made government policy appear both fragmented and difficult to understand.

Even centre-left think tanks supporting Labor said they were appalled by the speech. While the Resolution Foundation welcomed the focus on living standards, it also said that raising them is “the minimum for any effective government.” The Institute for Public Policy Research said: “Britain needs transformative change, not incremental improvement.”

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“The boldness was missing,” Anna McShane, director of the New Britain Project think tank, told Bloomberg.

Some Labor MPs said they wanted more inspiring policies on the economy and public services, and fewer consultations that risk pushing reforms into the tall grass. They said Reeves’ upcoming budget and spending review due next year should show more imagination, warning they would not support deep cuts to social care payments or departmental budgets.

One of them called on Starmer to appoint a senior economic policy adviser to scrutinize the Chancellor’s decisions. They accused the Prime Minister of outsourcing economic policy to Reeves and failing to block controversial decisions, such as eliminating cold-weather energy payments from most pensioners.

Likewise, the person said Starmer’s office needs a senior foreign policy aide, amid criticism over his foreign trips and a separate speech on Britain’s place in the world last Monday that was seen as lacking direction.

Aides also questioned whether Starmer had surrounded himself with men who agreed. While allies of the Prime Minister’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, said he had made some improvements since taking over from Sue Grey, some officials said ministers were yet to see much evidence of that. Many have also accused people around Starmer of behaving like control freaks.

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Some Labor strategists have warned that demand for better and more forceful messaging from Downing Street will grow. They pointed to right-wing agitators on Elon Musk’s social media platform

“Labour won their massive majority because people wanted change,” McShane said, referring to the Conservatives’ 14 years in power that ended in July. “Our poll showed that most people don’t feel that anything in Britain has worked anymore. To change that will take more than just a change of administration.

-With assistance from Ellen Milligan and Lucy White.

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