Keir Starmer ‘restless for change’ as he prepares to tour UK nations – politics live | General election 2024
- Politics
- July 6, 2024
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Starmer will set off tomorrow to visit all four UK nations
Starmer said: “We clearly on Thursday got a mandate from all four nations. For the first time in 20+ years, we have a majority in England, in Scotland and in Wales, and that is a clear mandate to govern for all four corners of the United Kingdom.”
Starmer added that from tomorrow, he will set off “to be in all four nations”. His plan is to visit Scotland, followed by Northern Ireland and then Wales before returning to England. He said that he will meet the first ministers to “establish a way of working across the United Kingdom that will be different and better to the way of working that we’ve had in recent years, and to recognise the contributions of all four nations”.
Key events
Starmer labels the Rwanda scheme a ‘gimmick’ and says it ‘was ‘dead and buried before it started’
Keir Starmer labelled the previous government’s Rwanda scheme a “gimmick” which was “dead and buried before it started”.
Speaking to the media in Downing Street, the prime minster said:
The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It’s never been a deterrent.
Look at the numbers that have come over in the first six and a bit months of this year, they are record numbers, that is the problem that we are inheriting.
It has never acted as a deterrent, almost the opposite, because everybody has worked out, particularly the gangs that run this, that the chance of ever going to Rwanda was so slim, less than 1%, that it was never a deterrent.
The chances were of not going and not being processed and staying here, therefore, in paid for accommodation for a very, very long time.
It’s had the complete opposite effect and I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.”
Although he didn’t want to get ahead of himself before the election results, Keir Starmer said preparations had been “extensive over the last six months”.
He said he had instructed his now cabinet to have gone through their briefs on the decisions that need to be taken and people that they are going to talk to in relation to those decisions. “That work has been going on for six months or more,” said Starmer.
“It is not an overnight excercise changing the country.”
Starmer says he’s ‘restless for change’ when asked about speed of delivery
Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason how quickly he could deliver “concrete change”, Keir Starmer answered:
Look, I’m restless for change and I think and hope that what you’ve already seen demonstrates that. Not least, the appointment yestreday of Patrick Vallance and James Timpson, two individuals who are associated with change and delivery. And it won’t suprise you to know that the discussions I had yesterday with them weren’t the first discussions I’ve had with them.”
Referring to 14 year’s of a Tory government, Starmer said “it is going to take time”. “We have plans in place,” he added, repeating the line from election night about how Labour had wanted to “hit the ground running”.
Starmer referred to a phone call between himself and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as he said that at the Nato summit he would “reiterate, as I did to president Zelenskiy yesterday, the support that we will have in this country and with our allies towards Ukraine”.
Starmer said: “This will be a politics and a government that is about delivery [and] service. Self-interest is yesterday’s politics. I want a politics and a country that works for you.”
Later on Tuesday next week, Starmer will set off for Washintgton to attend the Nato summit. He said he had already had a number of international telephone calls with “to establish the relations across with other countries, to have really important discussions about Ukraine and other pressing issues”.
He said security and defence is “the first duty” of his government and he will make clear the UK’s support of Nato.
‘Self-interst is yesterday’s politics’ says Starmer
Starmer said his party had received “a mandate to do politics differently”.
He added: “This will be a politics and a government that is about delivery, is about service. Self-interest is yesterday’s politics.”
Starmer added that the metro mayors meeting on Tuesday will include non-Labour mayors, as there is “no monopoly on good ideas and I’m not a tribal politician”.
He said of regional governors that “regardless of the colour of their rosette”, his door is open and his government will work with them if they want to deliver change.
Starmer has spoken about economic growth, which he described as the “number one mission of a Labour government”. He said the cabinet had discussed “driving growth” and “to make sure that that growth is everywhere across the whole country so people are better off everywhere, wherever they live.”
“The principle I operate to is that those with skin in the game know what is best for their communities,” said Starmer. He added that this requires being “bold about pushing power and resource out of Whitehall”.
When he’s back from his tour of the four nations, Starmer said he will hold a meeting of the metro mayors on Tuesday to discuss with them “their part in delivering the growth that we need across the United Kingdom”.
Starmer will set off tomorrow to visit all four UK nations
Starmer said: “We clearly on Thursday got a mandate from all four nations. For the first time in 20+ years, we have a majority in England, in Scotland and in Wales, and that is a clear mandate to govern for all four corners of the United Kingdom.”
Starmer added that from tomorrow, he will set off “to be in all four nations”. His plan is to visit Scotland, followed by Northern Ireland and then Wales before returning to England. He said that he will meet the first ministers to “establish a way of working across the United Kingdom that will be different and better to the way of working that we’ve had in recent years, and to recognise the contributions of all four nations”.
Starmer said: “At the cabinet meeting, I also discussed mission delivery. How we would put into action the plans that we had set out in our manifesto. And that we would have mission delivery boards to drive through the change that we need and that I’ll be chairing those boards so that it is clear to everyone that they are my prioirty in government.”
The prime minister said that he also reminded the cabinet that “we would be judged on actions, not on words”. He added that he will continue this afternoon to make a number of frontbench appointments.
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