Starmer joins Labour fight with warning on lost trust
● Starmer is the fifth MP to launch formal bid to replace Corbyn
Sir Keir Starmer said Labour had lost the trust of voters as he became the fifth candidate to enter the party’s leadership race
The Shadow Brexit Secretary is favourite to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, with Labour’s national executive committee due to meet today to set the timetable.
Leadership rival Jess Phillips also said the party’s manifesto pledges had not been “believable”, while Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said the “dreadful” result was partly because the manifesto “just wasn’t convincing”.
Labour leadership hopefuls have criticised the scale of Jeremy Corbyn’s radical proposals as they set out their stalls to succeed him and recover from the disastrous election defeat.
With Labour’s national executive committee due to meet today to set the timetable for the contest, which is expected to start tomorrow, all of the confirmed candidates, apart from shadow minister Clive Lewis, appeared on yesterday’s political television shows to make their pitches and bolster their credentials.
Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, who became the fifth candidate to enter the race at the weekend, said Labour had lost the trust of voters who felt the manifesto was “overloaded”, while Jess Phillips would not commit to re-nationalising all key utilities, a core Labour pledge of the Corbyn years, and said the free broadband proposal was unbelievable.
Sir Keir, the current favourite in the race, said Labour lost the public’s trust over a lack of clarity on Brexit, antisemitism, and a “feeling that the manifesto was overloaded”.
He said Labour “shouldn’t retreat from the radical” as he outlined his vision for the future, and called for more long-term investment for businesses and the government and private sector to set green targets and requirements together.
Ms Phillips told The Andrew Marr Show she would “wait and see” how Brexit turns out but hinted a return to the EU would be possible under her leadership. On the case for renationalising rail, she said the “test has been met” that the current system “serves literally no-one” and said profit-making in the prisons and probation service had to be stopped.
But when pressed on other utilities she said: “Of course we have to in the future look to how those services can better serve the public and nationalisation is one of those ways. While there are still homeless people literally sleeping outside my office both in London and in Birmingham we have to make the choices that people can trust that we will deliver.”
Ms Philips also questioned how the free broadband pledge would have been delivered when other public services were crumbling and people cannot get vital social care for their parents. “While that is the case offering people free broadband was just not believable,” she said.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the “dreadful” electoral result was partly because the manifesto “just wasn’t convincing because there was too much in it” and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy said the main factor in Labour’s failure was trust and blamed Mr Corbyn for failing to acknowledge the power of Boris Johnson’s Brexit message.
Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey, is expected to enter the race but is yet to declare and senior Labour MP David Lammy has ruled himself out of the contest.