MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer will on Thursday set out plans for five “national missions”, including fixing the economy, in a challenge to the governing Conservatives ahead of a pivotal year for both parties.
In a speech in the northern English city of Manchester, Starmer will say his first mission will be growing the economy, with a focus on “change for all” and helping “shape markets rather than serving them”.
Starmer will say the missions will signal what Labour would do differently, rather than just being priorities or promises. The plans for the other four missions will be unveiled in detail in the coming months.
With an election expected next year, Britain’s main parties are already setting out their solutions to key issues, including a spate of strikes, decades-high inflation, a healthcare crisis and a predicted long recession.
Setting out his own five plans last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to halve inflation; grow the economy; reduce the national debt; drive down health waiting lists; and pass new laws to stop migrants arriving on small boats.
Starmer will say in his speech on Thursday that without a serious plan, “there will be no light at the end of a very long tunnel for the British people”.
“Each mission will be laser-targeted on the complex problems which drive our crises. The root causes that demand new thinking,” he will say, according of extracts of the speech released by his party. “Each mission will come with clear, measurable outcomes.”
Sunak and Starmer’s five pledges echo the ones produced by Labour’s former leader Tony Blair before the party won a landslide election in 1997.
While Labour enjoys an opinion poll lead of about 20-points over Sunak’s Conservatives, it is still trying to cement its position as the most trusted by voters on the economy, having only recently overtaken the governing party on the issue.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce and Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
