Sir Keir Starmer will outline his “first steps” for government at a launch event to kickstart the next phase of Labour’s campaign for the general election.

The party leader will host the event in the potential battleground of Essex, where he will pledge to build on the five “missions” he set out last year.

Among the first steps “to change Britain” will be Labour’s pledge to deliver economic stability, cut NHS waiting times, launch a new border security command, set up publicly-owned energy firm Great British Energy, crack down on antisocial behaviour and recruit 6,500 new teachers.

Sir Keir told his shadow cabinet that, following a successful set of May local elections that saw the party steal the West Midlands mayor title from the Tories, the “next phase” of the party’s strategy was “crucially important”.

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Alongside the launch will be an advertising campaign – described by a party spokesman as the largest spend since the previous general election – that will see the Labour leader appear on ad vans and billboards alongside the six steps.

However, a spokesman stressed the steps will not be the “sum total” of the party’s election offer.

Sir Keir told members of his frontbench that “each of the first steps would chime with voters’ aspirations, show a clear set of priorities and a powerful direction of travel”.

“Stability is change”, he also told them.

The Tories hit out at what they said was Labour’s “sixteenth relaunch”, adding that it “won’t amount to a hill of beans”.

The “steps” will be provided to voters in physical form, but Labour steered away from directly comparing this to the pledge card given out by Sir Tony Blair ahead of the 1997 general election.

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Separate Scottish and Welsh launches are expected in coming weeks with offers aimed at voters in the devolved nations, the party said.

Richard Holden, the Tory Party chair, said: “Sir Keir Starmer’s been Labour leader for four years but still has no coherent plan.

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“Labour’s asylum amnesty, colossal unfunded spending commitments, and higher taxes would take us back to square one and it’s clear his sixteenth relaunch won’t amount to a hill of beans.”

“Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are sticking to the plan which is working to strengthen the economy – with inflation down from 11.1% to 3.2% and £900 back in hard-working people’s pockets – and a fair immigration system with boat crossings down.”

Slovakia’s prime minister remains in hospital in a critical condition after being shot several times in an attempted assassination.

Robert Fico was reported to be fighting for his life after being hit in the stomach on Wednesday.

At least four shots were fired outside a cultural centre in the town of Handlova, around 85 miles northeast of the capital Bratislava, where the 59-year-old was meeting supporters, the government said.

A 71-year-old suspect is in custody, but the motive for the shooting is still unclear.

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A message posted to Mr Fico’s Facebook account said he was taken to a hospital in Banska Bystrica, 17 miles from Handlova, because it would take too long to get to Bratislava.

The attack comes as political campaigning heats up three weeks ahead of Europe-wide elections to choose members for the European Parliament.

Mr Fico’s return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American ticket led to worries among fellow EU and NATO members that he would turn his country further away from the Western mainstream.

Under his stewardship, the government has halted arms deliveries to Ukraine, and his opponents worry he will lead Slovakia in the footsteps of Viktor Orban’s Hungary.

Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest against Mr Fico’s policies.

Concern is mounting that populist and nationalists similar to Mr Fico could make gains in the 27-member bloc.

“A physical attack on the prime minister is, first of all, an attack on a person, but it is also an attack on democracy,” outgoing president and political rival of Mr Fico, Zuzana Caputova, said in a statement.

“Any violence is unacceptable. The hateful rhetoric we’ve been witnessing in society leads to hateful actions. Please, let’s stop it.”

President-elect Peter Pellegrini, an ally of the new prime minister, called the shooting “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy.

“If we express other political opinions with pistols in squares, and not in polling stations, we are jeopardising everything that we have built together over 31 years of Slovak sovereignty.”

Joe Biden said he was alarmed, adding that the US “condemn this horrific act of violence”.

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NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg posted on X that he was “shocked and appalled” by the attempt on Mr Fico’s life.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it a “vile attack”.

Mr Fico, a third-time premier, and his left wing Smer, or Direction, party won Slovakia’s parliamentary elections in September.

But politics have been put aside in the wake of the shooting, with Slovakia’s parliament adjourned until further notice.

A popular passage used by thousands of Senegalese migrants to enter the US via flights to Nicaragua and a land route through Mexico has become practically “impossible”, a Senegalese man who made the trip has told Sky News. 

Local authorities have banned travel agents from selling plane tickets from Dakar to Nicaragua. Airports in Casablanca and Madrid – key transit hubs for the route – imposed transit visas on Senegalese passport holders earlier this year.

The crackdown comes after US authorities arrested Senegalese migrants 20,231 times for crossing the border illegally from July to December.

That’s 10 times more arrests than in the last six months of 2022, according to US Customs and Border Protection.

“There are some friends who ask how I did it, they were curious but didn’t have the money to make it,” a Senegalese man who made the journey in August 2023 tells us from his new home in the US.

“I put some of them in touch with the guy who helped me but some waited too long and now the route is closed.”

He says he spent 10 years’ worth of savings boosted by a loan from his sister to buy the £5,200 plane ticket to Nicaragua and pay £2,600 for smugglers taking them through Central America.

“It was very hard. I just got information from one of my friends that it was possible to attempt the US via Nicaragua and at that point I didn’t even have a passport,” he said.

He flew from Dakar to Casablanca to Madrid and after a 23-hour transit boarded a flight to Bogotá. From there, he flew to San Salvador and finally took a last flight to the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.

After five flights, the difficult journey had only just begun.

‘Guys were celebrating… crying’

He boarded a bus from Nicaragua to Honduras and then to Mexico where smugglers transported them in pickup trucks and by foot to the US border.

He says he was robbed by gangsters multiple times as he traversed the tough terrain of rivers and mountains to make it to the fence.

“When they cut the fence and brought us across, guys were celebrating, crying and shouting. After that we had to walk for a long distance but we were too happy to feel it,” he said.

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He spent two days at the border detention camp on the US-Mexico border before he was released.

It took him 18 days to make it and says that for others it can take a month. There is no doubt in his mind that he made the right choice, even as he waits for permanent status.

“Senegal is very hard – I went to university and have a masters degree. It is better [here in the US] than Senegal. What they pay here in one week is more than [what they pay] a month in Senegal,” he added.

Young men across Dakar are working to earn money in case a similar route to the US opens.

The journey through Nicaragua to the US is seen as a safer – albeit expensive – alternative to the deadly Atlantic route to the Canary Islands by fishing boat and the arduous land journey through North Africa to the Mediterranean Sea and then across to Italy.

For those who have survived those routes, the cost of trying and failing is much higher than the thousands of pounds needed to get to the US.

‘I thought slavery was finished’

Window-cleaner Issa, 32, says he was enslaved, tortured and detained in Libya before agreeing to return to Dakar.

He now organises a support group called Young Migrant Returnees that meet to work through the trauma they experienced in Libya and other corridor countries and raise awareness around the dangers.

“It was incredibly difficult – forced labour – we faced terrible things and we don’t want it to happen to friends and family,” he said.

“There were many of us and a lot of them died on the road. Some of them were imprisoned but we had a chance to come back to our country.”

He added: “I will never forget those memories. I thought that slavery was finished but from what I’ve experienced it’s still happening.”

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Repelled from trying again via Libya and horrified by the hundreds of young men dying in the North Atlantic, they weigh up their options.

Issa’s brother was in Brazil when the Nicaragua route opened up and is now in the US.

“If someone presented us with an opportunity to leave, which is different to the Libya route, we will take it because we are living a hard life in Senegal,” he said.

“Even those who worked in factories – the pay cheque is not good.”