Keir Starmer explains what Labor would do first if they win the election

Sir Keir Starmer has outlined what Labor would do first if they win this year’s general election.

The Labor leader unveiled a commitment map with six key policies, including ensuring “economic stability” and providing 40,000 extra hospital appointments every week.

Some of the pledges are more modest in scale than the five “national missions” announced by Sir Keir last year.

But he said these were “first steps” towards Labour’s wider plans.

Sir Keir’s five missions include making the UK the fastest growing major economy by the end of a first Labor term in government and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Speaking at an event in Essex, he rejected claims the party had scaled back its ambitions in the run-up to the election, saying the party had a “big, bold plan” but “we We need first steps.”

The six “first steps” are:

Commitments on healthcare, policing and education only apply to England, as powers in this area are delegated to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland . Labor will make separate policy commitments for Scotland and Wales.

Sir Keir said the moves were aimed at looking “the public in the eye” with a “down payment” on what the party would offer the country.

Asked if the milestone on NHS appointments could be described as promising despite the lack of a specific timeframe for delivery, he said: “It has – from day one , from the first minute, we will work to hold it.”

He added that his party was already in discussions with doctors and that Labor would be able to increase appointments “fairly quickly”.

He acknowledged that some promises he made during his bid to lead the Labor Party had been “adapted and changed”, but added “only when circumstances have changed”.

“I’m not going to make a promise before the election that I’m not sure I can actually keep.”

The Labor leader rejected being a Tony Blair “copycat” – despite handing out pledge cards, as Sir Tony did before his landslide victory in the 1997 election, and he posed for photos in a white shirt with rolled up sleeves.

But he welcomes comparisons between himself and former Labor leaders who led the party to general election victories.

“Well, the first thing I would say about Tony Blair, apart from the fact that he won his tie at big events, is that he won three elections in a row,” added Sir Keir .

But he insisted the circumstances of 2024 were very different to those experienced by Labor when Sir Tony took power, describing it as a “very different time to 1997”.

He said his style on stage, without a jacket and rolled-up sleeves, was about “trying to convey the kind of leader I am, my mindset and the mindset I have in mind when I make decisions.” .

Labor said the six steps are “not the sum total” of the party’s election offer and insisted the party also delivered on its other policy commitments, such as housing and workers’ rights.

Conservative chairman Richard Holden said the British public would not be “swindled” by Sir Keir, saying the Labor leader had “reneged on every promise he made during the Labor leadership campaign” and when he was “trying to make Jeremy Corbyn our candidate”. Prime Minister”.

“I think people need to take everything he offers with a huge pinch of salt,” Mr Holden added.

“It is clear that Labor does not have a coherent plan.”