UK’s Starmer under pressure over economy as Labour conference begins

PM Keir Starmer promises to protect public services and rules out austerity measures as the ruling party meets in Liverpool.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised to protect public services and ruled out austerity measures as his Labour Party’s annual conference kicks off, its first in 15 years as a governing party.

The four-day gathering in northwest England’s Liverpool city that started on Sunday came almost three months after Labour secured a runaway general election victory over the Conservatives.

Under pressure over the government’s decision to limit winter fuel payments to the elderly and use donations for clothing and hospitality, the party will have to find a balance between celebrating Labour’s long-awaited victory, defending its record, and not letting up on reminders of “difficult decisions” to come.

Despite laying the groundwork for likely funding cuts and tax rises in the budget due at the end of October, Starmer told the Sunday Mirror newspaper that he would not go “down the road of austerity”.

He repeated his warning that he will do the “tough things first”, but also told the Observer newspaper he would “make sure that our public services are functioning properly”, and would shield working people from tax rises.

Losing popularity

The Labour conference brings a much-needed morale boost after a week dominated by negative headlines for Starmer.

An Opinium poll for the Observer ahead of the conference showed that Starmer’s approval rating had suffered a huge drop since July, with only 24 percent approving of the job he was doing. He was reported to have received more than  100,000 British pounds ($133,225) in declared gifts and hospitality since December 2019 – the most of any MP.

While the gifts did not breach parliamentary rules, the row broke as his government was pushing Britons to accept short-term “pain for long-term good” to help fill the “black hole” in public finances that totals 22 billion pounds ($29.3bn) and that he says the Conservatives left behind.

In her opening speech at the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner struck a more optimistic note, as she stood in front of a red background emblazoned with the slogan: “Change begins”.

Rayner, who is also in charge of housing and communities, promised to “fix the foundations and put Britain back on the path to growth”, while Foreign Secretary David Lammy made a rousing speech with chants of “Britain is back”.

Ahead of the conference, Starmer told the Observer his government had in 11 weeks done “far more than the last government did probably in the last 11 years”, citing ambitious homebuilding targets, setting up of a publicly owned green energy investment body, and the recruitment of police officers and teachers.

But Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union which has more than one million members in Britain and Ireland, called on Starmer to overturn his decision to limit the fuel payments.

Graham told Sky News earlier on Sunday that she wanted Starmer to say the move was a misstep and reverse a policy that will means-test the payments that help some pensioners cover increasingly expensive fuel bills. “It’s a cruel policy. He needs to reverse it,” Graham said.

Starmer says he was forced to make tough decisions after the previous, Conservative government left a 22-billion-pound ($29bn) “black hole” in public finances – a charge the Conservatives deny.