Keir Starmer pledges to make UK fastest growing G7 economy

Sir Keir Starmer will speak in a speech on Thursday pledging to make Britain the fastest growing economy in the G7 if his opposition Labor party wins the next general election.

The pledge will be one of five long-term missions for the country as Starmer sets out his vision for a Labor government.

The Labor leader, who centered his party after the ‘hard left’ era under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, will present a vision reminiscent of the era of Tony Blair’s New Labor Party, three a generation ago elections for the party won .

“Missionary government is a very different path. Not state control or pure free markets, but a real partnership with rolled-up sleeves working for the national interest,” he will say in his Manchester speech.

Starmer will announce “five bold missions for a better Britain” in the areas of economy, health, education, climate change and the fight against crime. He will promise to introduce “clear and measurable” targets for each major issue, such as the party’s existing 2030 decarbonization target for the power system.

The five pledges mirror the way Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also issued a list of five priority areas he wants to address ahead of the next general election, which is expected before the end of next year.

Starmer will say that a Labor government would use “new thinking” to find “new solutions” to the country’s challenges: “New ways to harness the ingenuity that is all around us.”

“I’m not concerned about whether investment or know-how comes from the public or private sector, I just want to get the job done,” he will say.

Momentum, the grassroots pro-Corbyn campaign group, accused Starmer of “abandoning” the left-wing politics he championed three years ago – when he won the leadership – in favor of “reheated Third Way Blairism”.

Interviewed on the BBC Today Speaking on the program about why he dropped many of his 2020 pledges when running for leadership, Starmer said circumstances had changed due to the Covid pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Labor leader said he had dropped measures such as public ownership of water, energy and the Royal Mail after analyzing the cost to the public purse. “We would have to spend a lot of public money on public property,” he said.

When asked about his previous plan to abolish tuition fees, Starmer suggested that given the financial situation, the policy would be watered down: “I do think that the way we are handling tuition fees at the moment is not working. . . We have to look at what is affordable in the economy we have at the moment.”

Starmer said Corbyn, who currently sits as an independent MP, will not be the Labor candidate in the next election.

The Labor leader said one of his priorities had been “to rip anti-Semitism out of our party” following a series of incidents involving members of the grassroots.

“Jeremy was suspended from the lash for his response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. . . which found just over two years ago that the Labor Party had acted unlawfully in breach of equality legislation, this is a serious situation for any party.”