Keir Starmer to say Labour will need at least 10 years in power to ‘heal’ Britain in his keynote speech at the party’s conference

Sir Keir Starmer will today declare that Labour needs at least ten years in power to ‘heal’ Britain.

In a sign of Labour’s growing confidence it will win the next election, Sir Keir will use his keynote speech at the party’s conference to set out plans for a ‘decade of national renewal’.

Labour high command has warned shadow ministers against complacency at the party’s annual gathering in Liverpool this week, despite holding a double-digit poll lead over the Conservatives for more than a year.

But Sir Keir’s comments today suggest he believes he is now on course to hold power until the mid-2030s.

Shadow international development minister Lisa Nandy yesterday hinted at the plan, telling activists at a Labour fringe meeting: ‘We’re going for more than two terms.

Insiders said Sir Keir would reveal ‘little if any’ new policy in today’s speech, fuelling concern that Labour is hiding its agenda for fear of public scrutiny. 

A senior Labour source yesterday said that even the party’s election manifesto next year would be only a ‘slim volume’, setting out Sir Keir’s five missions for government, with relatively little in the way of detailed policy.

In his speech today, Sir Keir will accuse the Government of breaking Britain during 13 years of ‘Tory decline’.

But he will say that ‘what is broken can be repaired, what is ruined can be rebuilt’.

He will add: ‘People are looking to us because they want our wounds to heal and we are the healers. People are looking to us because these challenges require a modern state and we are the modernisers.

‘People are looking to us because they want us to build a new Britain and we are the builders.’

Sir Keir will insist that Labour has been transformed since the days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, saying he now leads ‘a changed Labour Party, no longer in thrall to gesture politics, no longer a party of protest… Those days are done. We will never go back.’

Instead, he will claim that Labour is now ‘a party of service… country first, party second’.

Sir Keir is expected to echo shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves in hinting that any Labour tax rises will be levied on business and the better off rather than ‘working people’.

In light of the cost of living crisis, he will say: ‘We should never forget that politics should tread lightly on peoples’ lives, that our job is to shoulder the burden for working people – carry the load, not add to it.’

The Labour leader will double down on pledges to tear up Britain’s planning system to ‘get Britain building’.

He will suggest that a new Labour government would oversee a ‘big build’. But previous pledges to build 100,000 new council houses a year have not been repeated this week.

Michael Gove yesterday said that Labour’s proposals to reform the planning system for infrastructure projects appeared to recycle initiatives the government has already made.

The Levelling Up Secretary said: ‘I hope everyone covering today’s non-announcements from Labour notes that they have literally no idea what to do on infrastructure.’

Sir Keir yesterday said he was ready for an election as early as May next year – and predicted the Conservatives would fight a dirty contest.

Addressing business chiefs, he said he expected Rishi Sunak to ‘go low’ in the fight to cling to power, and warned that the campaign was likely to ‘descend into a place which isn’t about big politics’.