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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will put the opposition party on high alert for a general election as he tells British voters that “the opportunity to shape our country’s future rests in your hands” in a speech on Thursday.
Speaking in the west of England, he will tell the public “things can be better” and argue that the prospect of an election later this year will bring hope to people across the country.
“The thought of millions of people, right across our country, putting a cross on that ballot paper, it’s what we’ve been waiting for, preparing for, fighting for. A year of choice and the chance to change Britain,” he will tell party activists.
Although Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he will call an election this year most analysts do not expect him to go to the country until the autumn, given his Conservative party is languishing 18 points on average behind Labour in the opinion polls.
But Starmer has ordered aides and shadow ministers to be alert for the possibility of an earlier election in May to coincide with local elections.
Starmer will claim the ruling Conservative party has “nothing to show” for its 14 years in power and that a Labour victory would lift everyone as he urges voters to ignore the “siren voices” claiming all politicians are the same.
“If you’ve been breaking your back to keep trading, steering your business through the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, the challenge of Brexit and the chaos of Westminster . . . if you’ve been serving our country, whether in scrubs or the uniform of your regiment and what you want now is a politics that serves you, then make no mistake — this is your year,” he will say. “The opportunity to shape our country’s future rests in your hands.”
Voters often tell opinion pollsters or focus groups that they do not know much about Starmer’s policies, despite the party having made dozens of specific commitments.
Although Labour’s manifesto is not yet finalised the party has drawn up a de facto draft through its “national policy forum” agreement last autumn.
Flagship policies include an array of pro-worker reforms, such as scrapping zero-hours contracts, major changes to the planning system to build more homes and a Green Prosperity Plan involving an eventual £20bn of additional borrowing annually to fund capital spending on net zero projects.
A Labour government would also increase the amount of tax paid by non-domiciled residents and private equity bosses and put VAT on private school fees to raise money to fund public services. It would also reform the House of Lords, albeit only gradually.
Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s director of campaigns, warned the shadow cabinet before Christmas about the danger of complacency, citing examples in Australia, the US and Germany, where parties have lost big poll leads in the final weeks of a “short campaign”.
Starmer will say he understands why people have “turned against politics as a force for good” but urges them to put that cynicism aside. “This year, at the general election, against the understandable despair of a downtrodden country, I will ask the British people to believe in it again.”
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