UK’s Starmer vows to prove doubters wrong and stay in power
Written by: Andrew MacAskill, Elizabeth Piper and Sam Tabahriti
LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to quell growing rebellion in his party on Monday, vowing to “prove the skeptics wrong and stay in power to avoid plunging Britain into a new political crisis”.
A growing number of Labor MPs have turned to Starmer after his party suffered the worst local election results for a ruling party last week; This prompted one former minister to threaten a leadership race if he failed to deliver radical change.
In a fiery speech, Starmer sought to show he got the message by saying “incremental change will not cut it” in a country suffering from two decades of economic stagnation and rising social tensions.
“I know people are frustrated with the state of Britain. I know people are frustrated with politics and some people are frustrated with me,” he said in a speech in London. “I know I have my doubts, and I know I have to prove them wrong. And I’m going to do it.”
Starmer won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history in 2024 on promises to expand the economy, reduce illegal immigration and cut waiting lists for state-run healthcare.
But progress has been hampered by policy U-turns, perceptions among some in his party that he is unwilling to take tough decisions and a series of political scandals, contributing to some of the lowest approval ratings of any British prime minister.
Uncertainty has increased borrowing costs as investors fear Starmer could be replaced by a more left-wing leader willing to take on more debt; This is a repeat of the chaos that ensued in the final years of the previous Conservative Party as it struggled for power.
Populist Reform UK, led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, has been leading national opinion polls for more than a year, and the leftist Green Party also made big inroads in British cities in local elections last week.
Starmer said Labor could not afford to turn on each other while the country faced “very dangerous rivals” who wanted “more grievance politics, more division, more pointing out Britain’s problems, looking for someone to blame, not solutions”.
“If we don’t do this right, our country is going to go down a very dark path,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Elizabeth Piper; additional reporting by Alistair Smout and Sarah Young; Editing by Edmund Klamann, Kate Holton and Michael Holden)
