Keir Starmer: ‘Government will have to be unpopular in order to take tough decisions for change’

Keir Starmer has said he is prepared for his government to be unpopular in order to make the “tough decisions” the country needs.

In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC, he said the only way to deliver the change Labour promised in its election manifesto is to “do the difficult things now”.

The interview saw the Prime Minister questioned about reform of the health service, far-right riots that took place across the summer, and the action needed to prevent similar tragedies to Grenfell from happening again.

‘Fixing the fundamentals’

Starmer repeated his defence of the move to means test winter fuel payments, a decision that has caused some controversy even among his own MPs.

The Prime Minister said the new Labour government needs to “fix the fundamentals” of the economy and that tough decisions were needed because of a £22bn black hole left by the last government.

Starmer said: “What I say to many people who will have concerns is that we were voted into office to bring about change, to make sure that we improve living standards, make people feel better off, to improve public services, to deal with crime, deal with immigration and issues like that.

“I am absolutely clear in my own mind that we can’t bring about that change if we don’t fix the fundamentals and stabilise our economy.”

• READ MORE: Reeves accuses Tories of having ‘covered up’ state of public finances from country

He also said, in order to make that change, “tough decisions” have to be made.

“I am absolutely convinced that we will only deliver that change ‒ I’m absolutely determined we will ‒ if we do the difficult things now. I know they’re unpopular, I know they’re difficult, of course they are tough choices. 

“We’re going to have to be unpopular. Popular decisions aren’t tough, they’re easy. When we talk about tough decisions, I’m talking about tough decisions, the things the last government ran away from, that governments traditionally run away from.

“I’m convinced that because they’ve run away from difficult decisions, we haven’t got the change we need for the country.”

When asked whether he would suspend or kick out any MP that votes against the plans to cut the winter fuel allowance in a vote on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said: “I think it’s very important for Parliament to speak on this ‒ but every Labour MP was elected in on the same mandate as I was, which is to deliver the change that we need for the country over the time we’ve got in office.”

NHS ‘broken but not beaten’

Ahead of the publication of a report by Lord Darzi on the state of the health service in England, expected to be made public on Thursday, Starmer said that the report finds that the NHS is “broken but not beaten” and cites spending cuts and the pandemic as some of the key reasons behind its struggles.

The Prime Minister said: “My conclusion is the only way out of this now is reform. I think only a Labour government can reform the NHS, and therefore we will use his diagnosis as the platform for the reform that we now need to carry out in relation to the NHS.

“I promised we’d get the NHS on its feet again but I also promised I’d make it fit for the future.

“This [Lord Darzi’s report] is the diagnosis, the platform to allow us to properly understand the state of the NHS and why it’s in that place, but also when it comes to technology when it comes to empowering GPs and preventative measures, to look at how we’re now going to reform the NHS.

“What I want to ensure that is in 75 years, people look back again and say we’ve still got a fantastic NHS because of the work the 2024 Labour government did.”

Grenfell-style cladding needs to be fixed ‘as quickly as possible’

Following on from the final report published into Grenfell published earlier this week, Keir Starmer vowed to accelerate programmes to make safe buildings which continue to have similar cladding seven years on from the disaster.

While he said he wants to have the process completed “as quickly as possible”, he did not give Kuenssberg an end date.

He said: “I am not going to give a false promise. I think there’ve been too many of those in the last 14 years, where people have given numbers and dates which they’ve plucked from the sky, which are not meaningful.

“I know that the work is going on to identify what blocks need work on, how we accelerate it. The money has been allocated. A lot of this now is identifying and pushing those who are really responsible to do this, to do the work that they are required to do.”

• READ MORE: Keir Starmer apologies to Grenfell families following publication of inquiry’s final report

Riots and the rise of the far-right

Starmer said that the riots over the summer were “symbolic of a broken country” and said, while he accepts people have strong views on issues like immigration, he was “not prepared to tolerate that sort of disorder”.

He expressed concern about the rise of the far-right and said they offer the “snake oil of the easy answer”.

Starmer said: “I’m convinced that the answer to it is delivery in government. The best argument against the far-right is to deliver, to bring about the change that we promised we’d bring about.

“That change was to improve living standards so people are better off, to make sure we’ve got properly functioning public services, particularly the NHS, and to deal with issues like immigration and crime and sewage ‒ we have to deliver on that.”

The full interview with Keir Starmer on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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