Starmer scraps leadership pledges to create ‘clean slate’

SIR KEIR STARMER has ditched the promises he made when standing for Labour leader two years ago, promising to enter the next election on a “clean slate” of policies.

In a move which angered Left-wing MPS and activists, he said the economic impact of Covid meant pre-pandemic commitments cannot be honoured.

Risking a further schism with trade unions and members of his own front bench, he issued a new ban on shadow ministers attending rail pickets.

Sir Keir won the 2020 contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn after running on a socialist platform with 10 key pledges, including plans to renationalise rail, energy, water and Royal Mail and “defending free movement” with the EU, all of which he has since dropped.

Sir Keir had also promised to increase income tax for the top 5 per cent of earners and to oppose the then Conservative plans to cut corporation tax.

The Labour leader said yesterday that all those pledges had been formally scrapped, along with the commitments in the party’s disastrous 2019 manifesto.

“A lot has happened in the last two years. We’ve been through Covid, we have debt on a scale we’ve not seen for a long, long time,” he told BBC Radio 4.

“We have to go into the next election making choices, where we have to say we will do X because we can afford it but we might not be able to do Y and to be open and transparent about it.”

Asked if that meant his 10 pledges were dead in the water, he replied: “Yes. The financial situation has changed, the debt situation has changed.”

Sir Keir acknowledged the move would anger the Left of the party and said that “saying no” to your own side “is the hardest thing” to do in politics.