A big majority will be best for Britain, says Labour’s Starmer

Give Labour a strong mandate on Thursday and I will make you better off, leader tells voters.

Keir Starmer on the hustings at Hitchin Town Football Club. Picture:Getty Images

Labour leader Starmer has appealed to voters to hand him a “strong mandate” so he can deliver the “difficult changes” needed to turn Britain around and grow the economy.

Sir Keir said the bigger his ­majority delivered on Thursday’s election, the better it would be for the country in a direct riposte to Tory claims that a Labour landslide would give his party unchecked power.

In an interview with The Times, he promised that after five years of a Labour government, voters would feel ­“materially better off” with more money in their pockets, and public services would be “working again”.

He said: “If you haven’t settled the planning, the infrastructure challenges, then you can’t get your economy going.

“It’s the mindset change we’ve talked about. Do we need a strong mandate for that? Yes, we do.

“Because these changes are difficult and the sense of the whole country wanting those changes is in terms of the platform on which we stand to take the country forward.”

Asked if he was saying the bigger majority, the better, Sir Keir said: “Better for the country. Because it means we can roll up our sleeves and get on with the change we need.”

Sir Keir said polls showing a Labour landslide “don’t predict the future … Because we’ve got a constituency-based system, there will be many constituencies where it goes down to a few hundred voters. This week is all about saying if you want change, you have to vote for it.”

The Tories have put warnings of a supermajority at the heart of their campaign in an effort to win back voters who are abandoning them for Reform.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will on Tuesday night urge voters to “lend” their support to the Conservatives to prevent a Labour super­majority. In an open admission of the party’s probable defeat on Thursday, he will call on the public to give the Tories the “strongest Conservative voice” possible in the next parliament.

“If just 130,000 people switch their vote and lend us their support, we can deny Starmer that supermajority,” he will say. “You have the power to use your vote to prevent an unchecked Labour government.”

Sir Keir urged voters who were unconvinced to judge him by his actions. “I have led and changed Labour,” he said as he rejected claims by economists that he would have to raise taxes or cut public spending to balance the books, saying Labour’s plans to overhaul the planning system, improve skills and usher in a more stable era of politics would encourage growth.

“I simply don’t accept this argument that says you can’t do any better than the last 14 years,” he said. “Even in recent weeks talking to investors, they have begun to engage with us on the timetable they would like to see us operating in if we win.”

Sir Keir repeatedly refused to rule out further tax rises in his government’s first budget if he won the election. Labour has said it will not raise income tax, nat­ional insurance or VAT but has not made the same commitment on capital gains tax, fuel duty or council tax.

THE TIMES