Local elections: Labour under fire over U-turns as Starmer campaigns in Medway

Good morning. Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner are out in Medway, Kent today on the final day of campaigning before voters in areas across England head to the polls in this year’s local elections. Labour strategists will likely say the visit has long been in the diary; the party is hoping to make the necessary gains on the council to remove the Tories from control. But we at LabourList like to think Labour is taking inspiration from our own Morgan Jones, who recently visited Medway for a dispatch on how activists are in touching distance of winning for the first time ever. Labour group leader Vince Maple told Morgan that Labour is “confident, but not complacent” about ending Conservative rule over Medway, stressing: “It will be a close election.” Much like Swindon – another area where the party is looking to make key gains – a strong performance in Medway this week will be held up as evidence that Labour is on track ahead of the next general election. While represented by three Tory MPs currently, the whole area went red in 1997 under slightly different boundaries to those in use today.

Somewhat derailing Labour’s final local elections campaign push is the fallout from Starmer’s announcement yesterday that the party will likely “move on” from its commitment to scrap tuition fees, which has reignited scrutiny of the Labour leader’s somewhat flexible definition of the word “pledge”. Rachel Reeves told ITV’s Good Morning Britain earlier today that it is “absolutely the case” that the current system is “not working” for students, graduates or universities, emphasising: “We absolutely need reform.” But the Shadow Chancellor argued that, because the Tories have “crashed the economy” and failed to deliver growth, the “circumstances that an incoming Labour government are going to find themselves in… are very different from the circumstances when Keir became leader” and so the party has to “look again at what our priorities would be”.

Reeves was then pressed on the other pledges Starmer made during his leadership election that he has since been seen to abandon, with presenter Susanna Reid asking: “Is it a reasonable question for people to ask whether they can believe anything that Keir Starmer does actually pledge?” The Labour frontbencher contended that Starmer has stuck to his pledges to extend workers’ rights and devolve new powers away from Westminster. But the similar grilling Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury James Murray received on Sky News this morning suggests that this issue may continue to dog Starmer and Labour in the run-up to the next general election.

The Labour leader faced questions about his trustworthiness following a key speech earlier this year setting out the five “missions” that will form the basis of the next manifesto, and Rishi Sunak has repeatedly attacked Starmer over his changing policy stance at Prime Minister’s Questions. A day out from the local elections, this renewed scrutiny of the Labour leader’s character is far from ideal – and makes the decision of a “senior party source” to confirm the U-turn to the Times this week all the more baffling.