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Keir Starmer will appeal directly to the “red wall” voters who left the party last year to “take another look at Labor”, telling them that his party loves Britain and is under new leadership.
Speaking from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, on Tuesday at the online event that replaces Labor’s annual conference, Starmer will emphasize a shift in focus of Labor since succeeding Jeremy Corbyn.
“To those people in Doncaster and Deeside, in Glasgow and Grimsby, in Stoke and Stevenage, to those who have turned away from Labor, I say this: we listen to you,” he will tell you at the online-only conference. “I ask you: take another look at Labor. We are under new leadership; we love this country like you. “
While key elements of the speech are estimated to resonate widely, notably a commitment to closing gaps in educational achievement and providing a long-term vision for social care, the direct appeal to former Labor voters in northern cities and Midlands is part of a post-Corbyn rebrand.
Amid concern within the Starmer team that the Labor Party had become too associated with criticism of the UK, the hope is to provide a more positive vision, based on the values of ‘decency, justice, opportunity, compassion and safety. ”.
“My vision for Great Britain is simple: I want this to be the best country to grow up and the best country to grow old. A country in which we put the family first,” he will say, according to excerpts from the broadcast speech. in advance.
On more personal points, Starmer will point to his own background as the first member of his family to go to college and his rise to become director of the public prosecution service before entering parliament.
In direct defiance of Boris Johnson’s much touted “leveling off” plan, Starmer will call for opportunities like his to spread nationally.
He will speak of: “An economy that does not force people to travel hundreds of miles from family and friends just to find a decent job.
“One that really works for every region and nation in this UK, with opportunity and security in every part of the country and at every stage of our lives.”
In addition to the restriction of not having a live audience, Starmer will compete against the public and political focus on the coronavirus, and the speech will be moved forward an hour to avoid clashing with Johnson’s speech to parliament on the issue.
He will deliver the speech from the Danum Gallery, Library and Museum in Doncaster, which, although represented by Labor MPs, is surrounded by constituencies that turned blue in the last election.
Other elements of the speech will seek to outline a more different view on other issues, such as a greater focus on the climate emergency, with Starmer promising that a policy will be “judged not only by how much it costs today but by what it does for the planet tomorrow.”
Labor MPs and members will closely scrutinize his words for signs of the direction Starmer seeks to take in the party, beyond his team’s initial focus on trying to project an image of competence and responsibility.
Gaining leadership in April, Starmer had little repudiation of Corbyn’s sometimes radical platform, but has since been shy about political views. This has brought the frustration of some skeptics in the party, despite Labor’s subsequent rise in the polls.
The new message for the party was also evident in Monday’s speech at the conference by Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, who also had to be moved so as not to clash with a report on the coronavirus from the government’s two top scientific advisers. .
Dodds emphasized Labor’s different approach to the economic fallout of the pandemic, reiterating his call for some kind of targeted employment support to replace the soon-to-end licensing scheme.
He highlighted his intention to ensure that “public money is always spent wisely, directed where it is most needed, not wasted where it is not.”
This message of fiscal responsibility was repeated several times, with calls for “value for money” in government contracts. She added: “We in Labor know that if you are responsible with public money, you can transform lives.”
A view more obviously contrasting with that of the government was established Monday with the speech of Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow Home Secretary, saying that Priti Patel “likes to talk tough.”
“When it comes to issuing press releases and talking about mobilizing the armed forces against boats, she is there,” he said. “With her words, she seeks to divide when she should seek to unite. However, she doesn’t act when injustice looks her in the face.
“Let me be clear: As Home Secretary, I would not sit idly by while the victims of the Windrush scandal continue to suffer. It’s the least we owe to that remarkable generation of people who were treated with such shame. “
