Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer’s vision ‘not bold enough’ to lead Britain out of ‘crisis’, union chiefs say
Union leaders have urged Sir Keir Starmer to be bolder with his vision for the country if he wants to win the next election and lead Britain out of decline.
In a message to the potential future incumbent of Downing Street, union chiefs said the Labour leader needed to offer a more positive message than simply being “better than the Conservatives”.
The choice words were delivered at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) annual conference in Liverpool, where issues like workers’ rights, the state of public services and the cost of living crisis are being hotly debated.
Politics latest: Speaker gives update on ‘China spy’ allegations
Paul Novak, the new general secretary of the TUC, delivered a rousing speech on Monday, claiming the Conservatives have “broken Britain” and calling for change in the form of a Labour government.
But while Labour traditionally enjoys the support of unions, the party’s perceived move to the centre, with a focus on fiscal Conservatism, has attracted anger among the movement.
Sharon Graham, leader of Labour’s biggest union donor Unite, has accused the party of becoming a “1990s tribute act” to former prime minister Tony Blair.
Despite winning three elections, she told Sky News that Sir Keir’s leadership needs to be more radical than then because there is less money in the public coffers to spend – and options such as wealth taxes and nationalising energy should be considered to raise capital.
In a reference to the post-war Labour government of Clement Attlee, which founded the NHS, she said: “Britain is in crisis. And what we need to do now is not to look back to 1997.
“What we need to do is be more like in 1945. The country needs a reboot and Labour needs to put policies forward that give it that reboot.”
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That sentiment was echoed by the leader of the PCS union that represents civil servants.
Mark Serwotka, a Labour member, said Sir Keir needs to offer a vision for people to vote for Labour “that is more than just ‘we’re better than the Conservatives'”.
He told Sky News: “Britain is in crisis. We’ve got people waiting for 15 hours in ambulances, schools being shut through crumbling concrete, a 180,000 backlog of asylum cases because of lack of staff and incredibly £45bn in uncollected tax because we don’t have enough staff in tax offices. A crisis needs urgent and radical action.”
Mr Serwotka called on Labour to offer things like free school meals, a record investment in public services and a clamp down on tax evasion.
He denied “singing from a different hymn sheet” to Mr Nowak, who urged the trade union movement to unite behind Labour “to kick this rotten government out”.
Mr Serwotka insisted: “I want to see a Labour government, but I don’t want to see a Labour government that comes in and tells people that they’ve ‘still got to live in poverty, there’s nothing much we can do about it’.
“The point of a Labour government is to offer hope to those currently in despair. And the way to do that is to say ‘we will be bold, we will invest in our communities’.”
Paul Nowak accused the Tories of having ‘broken Britain’
In a direct challenge to the Labour leader, he added: “If I had the chance to talk to Keir Starmer, I would say to him, enthuse those voters who didn’t vote Labour last time. Tell them why you would make a difference to their lives and you can win an election. But if you only rely on not being a Conservative, you risk winning the election. So be bold.”
Starmer: Labour ‘absolutely focused on future’
After more than a decade out of power, Sir Keir is hoping to become the first Labour prime minister to win at the ballot box since Mr Blair – who secured two more terms after his landslide victory in 1997.
He has sought to rebuild the party focusing on a more centrist style than his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, and has stressed the need for fiscal Conservatism amid bleak warnings about the state of the UK economy.
In recent months, he has rowed back on a number of big spending commitments, arguing Labour will only get into government if they are trusted to handle the public finances.
However, he insisted there is still “a lot of common ground” with trade unions when asked about the criticism.
Speaking ahead of a dinner with union leaders in Liverpool tonight, Sir Keir said: “The Labour Party is absolutely focused on the future, not the past, and the challenges that we will inherit if we’re privileged enough to go into government.
“The central challenge will be growing the economy. Within that is dignity and respect for working people in their working environment.”
Asked how he plans to keep unions on side, he added: “The Labour Party and the trade unions have had a long relationship together and we had a big session at the beginning of the summer where we agreed policy going forward.
“So what you’ll see here is a lot of common ground as we go towards what we know will be really huge challenges.”
The government has published witness statements submitted by a senior official connected to the collapse of a trial involving two men accused of spying for China.
Here are three big questions that flow from them:
1. Why weren’t these statements enough for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to carry on with the trial?
For this prosecution to go ahead, the CPS needed evidence that China was a “threat to national security”.
The deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins doesn’t explicitly use this form of words in his evidence. But he comes pretty close.
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In the February 2025 witness statement, he calls China “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”.
Six months later, he says China’s espionage operations “harm the interests and security of the UK”.
Yes, he does quote the language of the Tory government at the time of the alleged offences, naming China as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge”.
But he also provides examples of malicious cyber activity and the targeting of individuals in government during the two-year period that the alleged Chinese spies are said to have been operating.
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Witness statements published in China spy trial
In short, you can see why some MPs and ex-security chiefs are wondering why this wasn’t enough.
Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove told Sky News this morning that “it seems to be there was enough” and added that the CPS could have called other witnesses – such as sitting intelligence directors – to back up the claim that China was a threat.
Expect the current director of public prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson to be called before MPs to answer all these questions.
2. Why didn’t the government give the CPS the extra evidence it needed?
The DPP, Stephen Parkinson, spoke to senior MPs yesterday and apparently told them he had 95% of the evidence he needed to bring the case.
The government has said it’s for the DPP to explain what that extra 5% was.
He’s already said the missing link was that he needed evidence to show China was a “threat to national security”, and the government did not give him that.
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What does China spy row involve?
The newly published witness statements show they came close.
But if what was needed was that explicit form of words, why was the government reticent to jump through that hoop?
The defence from ministers is that the previous Conservative administration defined China as a “challenge”, rather than a “threat” (despite the numerous examples from the time of China being a threat).
The attack from the Tories is that Labour is seeking closer economic ties with China and so didn’t want to brand them an explicit threat.
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Is China an enemy to the UK?
3. Why do these statements contain current Labour policy?
Sir Keir Starmer says the key reason for the collapse of this trial is the position held by the previous Tory government on China.
But the witness statements from Matthew Collins do contain explicit references to current Labour policy. The most eye-catching is the final paragraph of the third witness statement provided by the Deputy National Security Adviser, where he quotes directly from Labour’s 2024 manifesto.
He writes: “It is important for me to emphasise… the government’s position is that we will co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must, including on issues of national security.”
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In full: Starmer and Badenoch clash over China spy trial
Did these warmer words towards China influence the DPP’s decision to drop the case?
Why did Matthew Collins feel it so important to include this statement?
Was he simply covering his back by inserting the current government’s approach, or was he instructed to put this section in?
A complicated relationship
Everyone agrees that the UK-China relationship is a complicated one.
There is ample evidence to suggest that China poses a threat to the UK’s national security. But that doesn’t mean the government here shouldn’t try and work with the country economically and on issues like climate change.
It appears the multi-faceted nature of these links struggled to fit the legal specificity required to bring a successful prosecution.
But there are still plenty of questions about why the government and the CPS weren’t able or willing to do more to square these circles.
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