Sensing power, UK poll favourites Labour holds annual conference

The leader of Britain’s Labour main opposition on Sunday warned the party not to become “giddy” as it eyes a return to power after more than a decade out of office.

Keir Starmer’s words of caution came as the party gathered for its annual conference, ahead of a general election expected next year.

The party, which has enjoyed double digit poll leads for months, has also been buoyed by a big local election win in Scotland on Thursday.

“It is not going to be giddy, it is not going to be ‘job done’,” Starmer told The Observer weekly.

“So you won’t get razzmatazz. You won’t see mistakes that have been made in the past by opposition parties,” he said.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has been battling stubbornly high inflation, a cost of living crisis and strikes across the economy including the state-run National Health Service.

Kicking off the four-day conference, Starmer announced a £1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) plan to tackle NHS waiting lists which have ballooned due to the impact of the strikes on top of a huge pandemic backlog.

The plan, which Starmer outlined in an interview with the Sunday Mirror, would create an estimated 2.2 million NHS appointments a year.

Starmer, 61, will be looking to come out of the event in Liverpool with the party’s poll lead intact, even strengthened, after last week’s Conservative party conference was overshadowed by infighting and the downgrading of a high-speed rail project.

He described Labour’s huge victory in a by-election in Scotland as a “big step in the right direction” towards becoming the biggest party in parliament, which would see him become prime minister.

“We’re the party of change in Britain. We’re the party of change right across the whole country,” Starmer said Friday, a clear reference to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s claim that only the Tories offer change – despite being in power for 13 years.

Labour last held the keys to 10 Downing Street in 2010, when Gordon Brown was prime minister, and is readying itself to govern again following a general election that must be held by January 2025 at the latest.

The last nationwide vote in 2019 saw Labour suffer its worst election defeat since 1935 under far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But after the landslide loss to the Tories, then led by Boris Johnson, Starmer has pulled the party back to the centre ground.

He hailed as “seismic” Thursday’s win over the Scottish National Party in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat, southeast of Glasgow, with a 20 percent vote swing.

Labour needs to win back a sizeable chunk of the 40 seats it lost in Scotland in 2015 if it is to have a chance of ousting Sunak’s Conservative government.

Economic constraints

Recent surveys have showed Labour’s poll lead narrowing after Sunak announced populist policies that attempt to put clear water between the increasingly right-wing Conservatives and their opponents.

A constituency-by-constituency survey by the Observer, however, predicted a landslide victory for Labour unless Sunak is able to close the gap.

The analysis, commissioned by the 38 Degrees campaign group and carried out by the Survation polling company, surveyed more than 11,000 voters shortly before the Conservative Party conference.

Starmer, a former chief state prosecutor, is regularly accused of being too cautious and failing to spell out exactly what he stands for.

He has ruled out a number of things, including scrapping university tuition fees and taking Britain back into the European Union.

Starmer has also backed away from tax increases and scaled down Labour’s green energy plan, allowing Conservatives to accuse him of flip-flopping on several issues.

The government’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda — currently awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on its legality – would also be dropped, he told the BBC on Sunday.

Supporters praise him as managerial, saying he is adapting to economic realities, but many critics accuse him of not expressing a clear vision for the country.

Observers expect him to put more meat on the bones of Labour policies when he speaks at the conference on Tuesday, which could be the last annual gathering of the party before the general election.

But economic constraints mean he may be reluctant to commit to major spending pledges that Labour might not be able to meet if elected.