UK’s Starmer says growth would be Labour’s ‘defining mission’

LONDON (Reuters) – British Labor leader Keir Starmer said on Sunday his party’s “single defining mission,” if elected to govern, would be to stimulate economic growth, and expressed confidence it could partner with businesses to achieve this. “very quickly”.

At the start of his opposition party’s annual conference in the northern city of Liverpool, likely the last before the next national election, Starmer said his reshuffle of the Labor Party was “just in time” and the party was ready to take the power.

With a healthy lead over the ruling Conservatives ahead of elections scheduled for next year, Starmer said he would use the conference to “make his case”, offering voters a series of policies that would stimulate growth.

But 61 years is under pressure to break with its fiscally cautious approach to policy, and the head of Labour’s biggest donors, the Unite union, has called on Starmer to be bolder and return to traditional left-wing values.

“We have to create the conditions for growth in this country… I am confident that we will achieve that growth. It is the only defining mission of an incoming Labor government,” Starmer told the BBC.

He said a Labor government would partner with businesses by providing investors with the “stability” he said had been so lacking under the Conservative government, which at its party conference last week canceled a high speed train project.

“Everything depends on that,” he said, adding that only growth could finance the renewal of public services.

“We believe this can happen very quickly – within months of a Labor government coming in we can turn things around and get the investment we need.”

Growth in Britain has been weak by historical standards, and many households have struggled with the rising cost of living, but official data last month said the country’s performance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic had been much stronger than previously thought, growing faster than Germany or France.

Starmer’s decision to partner with large companies to stimulate investment and growth has drawn some criticism.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said Labor was “being too timid” with its offer to voters.

“I want the Labor Party to come in and fight for workers and their communities,” he told Sky News. “We’ve had 13 years of Conservatives fighting for big business and for the rich. Now is the time for Labor to come in and fight for us.”

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.