UK

UK election: Starmer will try to set up ‘permanent Labour government’ if he wins, says home secretary

Labour leader says he is ‘not taking any lectures’ from James Cleverly about elections and accuses Tories of inflicting 14 years of chaos on the country

Labour leader Keir Starmer arrives to give a speech at Hitchin Town Football Club in Hitchin, England. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Andrew Sparrow
Mon Jul 1 2024 - 11:29

The UK home secretary has claimed Labour leader Keir Starmer would want to establish “a permanent Labour government” if he won the election.

Conservative James Cleverly told the BBC: “The reason that this is so important is because Labour have already said they are going to gerrymander the system, they have said they’re going to pack out the House of Lords, they’ve said they’re going to get votes at 16, they’re going to get votes for foreign nationals, they’re probably going to get votes for criminals.

“They are determined to have a permanent Labour government and they are quite willing to distort the British political system to get that – that is what is at stake,” he said.

“This is not an election which is about giving the Conservatives a bit of a telling off, and many people might think that is legitimate ... [Labour] have said they’re going to distort the political system and I think there’s a real risk, there is a genuine risk, that they take a majority if that is what they get to try and lock in their power permanently, because they don’t really feel confident that they’re going to be able to make a credible case to the British people at the next general election.”

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British prime minister Rishi Sunak will be making a similar argument in speeches today. He will warn Labour would use landslide to shift politics to the left.

Asked about Mr Cleverly’s claim this morning that Labour would try to “gerrymander” the system, Labour leader Keir Starmer said he is “not taking any lectures from him” about elections. The Tories have inflicted 14 years of chaos on the country, he added.

Mr Starmer said he is confident people will be “truly better off” and public services “working properly” after five years of Labour

At an event in Hitchin, England, he said: “Is it possible to bring around the change that we offer? Yes, it is. We have that determination, that intention, and in five years’ time we will be able to look back and say: ‘you are truly better off, your public services are working properly and the economy is working for everyone.’ I’ll be very, very happy to be judged on that record.”

The Labour leader also said the far-right victory in France demonstrates the need to show “only progressives have answers” to problems that people are facing.

Asked about the election results there, where millions of people have voted for the far right, he said the lessons he draws from that is that people are disaffected, and that they do not trust politicians.

“The lesson I take from that is that we need to address the everyday concerns of so many people in this country who feel disaffected by politics, who feel that either the country is too broken to be mended or that they can’t trust politicians because of what the Tories have done for the last 14 years.” – Guardian

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