(Bloomberg) -- Keir Starmer is facing calls from across his Labour Party for bolder policies and sharper messaging to reconnect with voters, after a major speech aimed at rebooting his stuttering UK premiership flopped this week.
The prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves are drawing growing criticism over what ministers, aides and lawmakers privately described as a disappointing five months in office. Starmer’s reset moment on Thursday, including six “milestones” designed to be tools to measure the government’s progress, triggered more disquiet and confusion about his strategy.
Labour figures from a broad range of factions — from Tony Blair-era veterans, Starmer allies and lawmakers on the left of the party — said the mood was low. Several Labour MPs and aides told Bloomberg they were surprised by how poorly Starmer and Reeves were performing, and questioned whether they had even had a plan for power or a way to communicate it.
The speech’s bumpy landing led some Labour insiders to question whether Starmer and Reeves would survive until the next election — a suggestion that would have been borderline unfathomable just a few months ago.
Though there were warning signs in Labour’s landslide election victory in July, which delivered a huge parliamentary majority despite relatively low popular support, the government’s early stumbles have still been striking. Reeves’ tax-raising budget, which angered business groups, farmers and pensioners, came after she was accused of denting growth with doom-laden rhetoric.
It was the last thing Labour needed, especially with Starmer’s poll ratings slumping and the prime minister struggling to move beyond allegations of cronyism and the scandal-hit departures of his top aide and a cabinet member.
To be sure, Starmer’s allies counter that it’s still early in his five-year term, and that his parliamentary majority will allow him to do things that shift the narrative. The Conservatives left an unenviable inheritance, people close to the premier said, including unfunded spending commitments, record immigration, a faltering health service and prison overcrowding that forced the government into taking the politically toxic decision to release some inmates early.
In his speech, Starmer stuck to his messaging about “fixing the foundations” and restoring economic stability as a prerequisite for ramping up more exciting things like infrastructure spending and house building.
“We took really tough decisions in the budget and we did them early, and we stabilized the economy,” Starmer said in a BBC interview broadcast on Friday. Referring to one of his “milestones” on improving living standards, he said: “I want people to feel better off straight away — feel better off in the sense of more money in their pocket, feel better off because they’ve got a secure job that they know is guaranteed to give them the money they need.”
Yet for many in Labour, the speech was an example of a managerial and technocratic tone that frustrates even some of Starmer’s supporters.
An ally of Blair, the three-time election winner, said Starmer risked echoing the mistakes of Joe Biden and US Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by not taking voters with him. Emmanuel Macron’s struggles in France underscore the danger of being seen as out of touch, the person said. In the UK, Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage is itching to emulate his friend Donald Trump’s achievements.
Dismissing Starmer’s speech as word salad, the person said the premier did not appear to understand that a key part of the job was communicating and not just administrating. They expressed despair at the various “missions” and “first steps” and “priorities” and now “milestones” they said made government policy look simultaneously piecemeal and hard to understand.
Even center-left think tanks typically supportive of Labour said they were underwhelmed by the speech. While the Resolution Foundation welcomed the focus on living standards, it also said lifting them was the “bare minimum for any functioning government.” The Institute for Public Policy Research said “Britain needs transformative change, not incremental improvement.”
“Boldness was missing,” Anna McShane, director of the New Britain Project think tank, told Bloomberg.
Some Labour MPs said they want more inspiring policies on the economy and public services, and fewer consultations that risked kicking reforms into the long grass. Reeves’ next budget and spending review, due next year, should show more imagination, they said, warning that they would not support deep cuts to welfare payments or departmental budgets.
One called on Starmer to appoint a senior economic policy adviser to scrutinize the chancellor’s decisions. They accused the premier of outsourcing economic policy to Reeves and failing to block controversial decisions, such as removing cold weather energy payments from most pensioners.
Similarly, the person said Starmer’s office needed a senior foreign policy aide, amid criticism about his overseas trips and a separate speech on Britain’s place in the world last Monday that was seen as lacking direction.
Aides also questioned whether Starmer had surrounded himself with yes-men. While allies of the premier’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, said he’s brought about some improvements since taking over from the ousted Sue Gray, ministers had yet to see much evidence of that, some officials said. Several also accused people around Starmer of behaving like control freaks.
Some Labour strategists warned the demand for better and more powerful messaging from Downing Street will only increase. They pointed to right-wing agitators on Elon Musk’s X social media platform — as well as posts by the owner himself — potentially undermining the administration.
“Labour won their massive majority because people wanted change,” McShane said, referring to the Tories’ 14 years in power that came to an end in July. “Our polling showed most people felt nothing in Britain worked anymore. To turn that around will need more than a change of management.”
--With assistance from Ellen Milligan and Lucy White.
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