Keir Starmer's keynote at TBI Institute - Future of Britain Conference

Keir Starmer's keynote at TBI Institute - Future of Britain Conference

It’s a pleasure to be here today and I’m very grateful for the invitation.

I would like to thank you, Tony, personally for that and for all the support you have given me since I've been Labour leader.

But most of all for the work you do here at the Tony Blair Institute - which is always, as you would expect, relentlessly focused on the future. 

Draws deeply on what is happening beyond our shores, the very best in public policy innovation but remains grounded in a fierce commitment to this country, and a burning belief that we can be better. 

Now, sadly, at the moment, that optimism is becoming a faintly heretical belief - but today, I want to set out a defence of that position and to explain how my Labour Party is crafting a political project and programme that can deliver it. 

It begins with a single-minded purpose: to fight the pernicious idea that background equals destiny, shatter what I call the class ceiling, and build a country where you don’t have to change who you are, just to get on, and where families believe, with the certainty they deserve, that the future will be better for their children. 

That is my politics, it's my story, and for me it’s also the driving force of progressive politics - the currency of our hope. 

But by anyone’s standards, that’s in short supply at the moment. I think everyone knows, you've been discussing it all day, that there are enormous challenges. 

The in-tray of the next government will be like no other. Without decisive leadership, it will gnaw away at our sense of collective purpose and push us towards a learned political hopelessness, a mindset of decline. 

To be honest, it’s impossible to list all the challenges - we’d be here all day. There’s the cost-of-living crisis of course, and climate change, a recipe for long-term global instability. 

The ageing society - the biggest change in who we are since the industrial revolution. 

Artificial intelligence, technology that will - there’s no question about it - reshape our economy and quickly. 

The changing balance of power in the world and an unforgiving global race, not just for jobs, also for the new materials and supply chains needed to sustain prosperity in this changing world. 

Then, as if all that wasn’t enough, on top of it all, we have the mess of the past thirteen years; a botched Brexit deal that has strangled our economic dynamism, a mortgage bombshell that will blow-up British home ownership, infrastructure starved of investment, wages - totally flat, public services - on their knees. 

The worst period for British productivity since Napoleon. Make no mistake, it's a new age of insecurity and we’re not even close to match fit. 

So - to get back on our feet, join the race, win the race, and get our future back.

We need three things: 

Growth. 

Growth. 

Growth. 

You might have heard a refrain a bit like that before. But I’m serious, it’s the only answer that can restore long-term hope and opportunity. 

We need to rebuild the foundations of our economy, fundamentally change Britain’s growth model. 

Growing the economy, and crucially how you do it, that is the central question. Not just here in Britain, for progressives everywhere, the biggest barrier to our purpose of lifting working people up. 

It actually helps to think about this politically, it simplifies things. Because when progressives win, they do so with a fairly universal argument. 

It runs like this: that we will deliver, no matter how volatile the external world, security for your family, for your community and for our country. And from that strong foundation, guaranteed by a dynamic state, with world class public services, your aspirations can flourish, success can be realised, and you can get on. 

Get on in a growing and stable economy that creates new opportunities, pays for that strong foundation and, where necessary, the redistribution needed to tackle injustice. 

That’s our argument - and when we convince on it, we win.

But when we forget elements, when we forget security or aspiration; wealth creation or economic stability, then yes, we lose. 

And we also lose, when we stop persuading new people to our argument. That’s what I mean by project, who do we need to convince again. 

And for my Labour Party, for me, after the collapse in Scotland in 2015, the loss of the red wall in 2019, and the division of the Brexit years, the project is to return Labour to the service of working people. To become, once again, the natural vehicle for their hopes and aspirations across all four nations on these islands. 

It’s not the only path a progressive party could take, there are always different directions. The rabbit hole of narrow identity politics is not a new thing, but it’s always there.  

You could even completely unmoor from the concerns of working people, that sounds ridiculous to me, but some people did seriously suggest it, after the Brexit referendum. 

But no, I am completely convinced that reconnecting with working people is the right path. Not just because I feel it in my bones, although I do, but also because it forces us to confront the realities of the country and its challenges more starkly. 

Most of all on, you guessed it, growth. 

Because, the central reason progressive parties around the world have struggled to connect to working people isn’t anything to do with woke, that’s a distraction on both sides of politics.  

It’s rather that an underlying assumption of that traditional argument, that growth would be distributed evenly across a country and its people, has - when faced with the headwinds of globalisation and technology - collapsed. 

But also, that while redistribution will always be a tool in our box, it can’t be a one-word plan for everywhere outside of the South East. That’s not enough on its own to persuade people, working people, that the traditional argument still holds. 

And so, we don’t convince. 

That’s why growth in every community is the oxygen of our ambitions, totally central to our programme - our five national missions.

It is of course a mission in its own right, the highest sustained growth in the G7, that’s our goal. 

But the other four - clean electricity by 2030, an NHS fit for the future, safer streets in our communities, and shattering the class ceiling - they all require growth and they all support growth. 

Now, to meet all these challenges, the British state needs fundamental reform. That's why our missions - “mission driven government” - is a new approach to the state. It’s about the how as well as the what, a new way of governing that draws on a deep body of work. 

It does mean breaking down silos, joining up services, power out of Whitehall - a total rewiring. But also a new mindset when it comes to what we think government is capable of, a total rejection of the short-term, sticking plaster outlook that can’t focus on the future, that washes its hands and says - no, we won’t intervene on behalf of businesses and working people.  

Take technology. I totally accept the optimistic message of this conference on the role it can play in public services, you can see that in our reform plans. 

The work Jonathan Ashworth is doing on how artificial intelligence can deliver quicker, more responsive services in JobCentre Plus, Wes Streeting’s commitment to use it to improve diagnostic speed and accuracy for diseases like cancer, or Bridget Phillipson’s plans to finally crack the code on digital skills and weave them through a new schools curriculum. 

Technology can be a game-changer, no question about that. But look, there’ll be no technological revolution in our public services unless we have an economy that is open to that, with new institutions that can crowd-in new investment and a government that takes seriously our reputation - our global standing - in everything it does, and that truly believes you need dynamic government to seize the opportunities of the future. 

No, to be a careful steward of the economy in a volatile world, to grow the economy through difficult times, you need to be proactive. That’s the lesson staring us in the face. 

The stand-aside state can’t cope with the world in front of us, where other countries don’t behave in the way market dogma expects, where global supply chains can be weaponised by tyrants, and where for working people, trickle-down growth means power trickles-up and jobs trickle-out.

So in short, on the road back to hope and opportunity, the signpost is labelled growth: 

Growth for our purpose.

Growth for our project.

Growth for our programme.

A new growth model for Britain, that accepts the imperative of economic stability, but still charts a new course: 

That modernises our public services.

Invests in the industries of the future.

Gives communities control.

Backs science, enterprise, and our universities.

Reforms our broken labour market.

Reskills the nation.

Restores our standing, and bulldozes through the planning laws that hold our future back.  

A long-term plan for long-term prosperity. 

But finally, one thing I do take issue with - the idea that this is somehow beyond left and right.

No, for me this is a progressive moment, because on the right, all I see is retreat: 

Retreat from the world.

Retreat from the battle of ideas. 

Retreat from a necessary fight against their dangerous fringe. 

On the other hand, all around the world I see progressive parties asking the difficult questions, looking for new ways to express that traditional argument, going for growth. 

That, in the end, is the only way to break Britain out of its current doom-loop and deliver our purpose. 

It will require political courage, hard choices, and an unbending urgency on reform. But it’s the path we choose: 

The builders not the blockers. 

Renewal not decline. 

In place of stagnation, growth.