Keir Starmer to warn shadow cabinet ‘hardest part’ still ahead if Labour wants general election win

Labour leader Keir Starmer will warn his shadow cabinet the “hardest part lies ahead” despite signs voters are returning to the party after leaving over Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn.

Amid warnings Labour could fall short of a majority, Sir Keir is set to tell his top team they must show how the party would create a “big reforming government” rather than relying on the Tories’ unpopularity.

The opposition leader will acknowledge there remains “a lot of scepticism” about politics and will tell them they must show they have plans that offer “not just reassurance, but the hope the country needs”.

Labour gained 536 council seats in last week’s polls while the Conservatives lost 1,000 councillors. The opposition was particularly buoyed by winning control of councils in the Brexit-backing areas of Dover, Blackpool, Medway and Stoke.

Sir Keir believes Rishi Sunak has made a strategic error by thinking that voters are more concerned with “woke” issues than the cost of living and the crisis in the NHS.

In the coming weeks, Labour will try to persuade more voters they are ready for power by unveiling details of its missions on education reform, clean power and making the NHS fit for the future as it seeks to bolster support.

Professor John Curtice and other leading polling experts have said the opposition may fall short of winning an overall majority in the Commons without further progress ahead of the general election expected next year.

Sir Keir will issue his own warning at the regular meeting of his shadow cabinet. “The hardest part lies ahead,” he is expected to say. “People who turned away from us during the Corbyn years and the Brexit years are coming back.

“But there is understandably a lot of scepticism about politics out there and now we need to go from reassurance to hope. We need to show that we will be a big reforming government bringing hope of a better life for working people.”

Sir Keir argues that the Conservatives are “doing too little, too late to repair the damage they have done” to the health service. “The NHS trumps ‘woke’ every day of the week," Sir Keir will tell his shadow cabinet.

The Independent understands Labour is also considering putting higher taxes on foreign buyers of UK homes as the party seeks to pressure the government on the housing crisis.

The opposition plans to increase the 2 per cent surcharge on stamp duty for overseas buyers, ban them purchasing more than 50 per cent of homes in a development and introduce a rule allowing first-time buyers priority access to new developments.

Meanwhile, Mr Sunak refused to apologise for the dire Tory local election losses on Monday, as he promised to work “night and day” to deliver on the priorities he has set for the nation.

Former levelling up secretary Simon Clarke said the PM’s “major mistake” of dropping housebuilding targets had played a role in the poor performance, while ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith and deputy chairman Lee Anderson said tax cuts were the key to election victory next year.

SNP leader Humza Yousaf said on Monday that he is confident his party can triumph over Labour in Scotland at next year’s general election – and win any independence referendum the SNP can extract from Labour in a hung parliament.

With projections suggesting Labour could struggle to gain an overall majority at Westminster, the SNP is keen to make clear its negotiating position.

Mr Yousaf said: “I’d be confident of both winning the general election and confident, of course, of winning an independence referendum”, adding that the SNP could obtain the “prize” of a referendum, as well as “kicking the Tories out of Scotland”.

Sir Keir has repeatedly said there will be no deals with the SNP after an election. But Labour has not explicitly ruled out a coalition with the Lib Dems in the event of a hung parliament.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey suggested that another referendum on a proportional representation (PR) voting system would be a key demand for a coalition. “PR is absolutely on the table for the Liberal Democrats, of course it is,” he told the BBC on Sunday.

Buoyed by success in taking more than 400 council seats, Sir Ed’s party is up four points on 16 per cent in the latest Redfield and Wilton poll – the highest showing in the firm’s surveys since the 2019 general election.