Missions, first steps and milestones: How Sir Keir Starmer’s priorities have changed since last year
Sir Keir Starmer’s promises to the British people have been evolving since he first outlined his “five missions” in February 2023.
In public, Downing Street denies any tensions between the missions, May’s “first steps” and today’s six “milestones” and three “foundations”.
In private, I’ve been told they have caused divisions, with the focus changing after the original architects left as Labour entered power.
But what really matters is how they have evolved. Here’s how they have changed and what that means.
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The Plan for Change: Economy
Feb 2023 Mission: To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
June 2024 First Step: Deliver economic stability with tough spending rules, so we can grow our economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so working people have more money in their pockets as we aim to deliver the highest sustained growth in the G7.
Analysis: The new big economic target – to raise living standards in this parliament – is already on track to be met, according to the government financial watchdog.
Some in government hope this will eclipse the existing target – to overtake the growth rate of all other G7 countries – that was promised in February 2023.
Sir Keir said today he was “doubling down” on the G7 target, despite economists doubting it could ever be achieved, with some sources suggesting it would disappear altogether.
But today it became an “aim”, not a pledge, and the PM hinted he knows it will not be achieved in this parliament by promising the living standards milestone first – do we effectively have a target that isn’t a target?
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Starmer unveils ‘plan for change’
The Plan for Change: Environment
Feb 2023 Mission: Make Britain a clean energy superpower to cut bills, create jobs and deliver security with cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero.
June 2024 First Step: Set up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company, to cut bills for good and boost energy security, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Securing home-grown energy, protecting bill payers and putting us on track to at least 95% clean power by 2030, while accelerating the UK to net zero.
Analysis: The 2023 zero-carbon electricity supply mission – and the Labour manifesto – made no mention that the party believes it will have achieved the target while still having up to 5% of electricity generation powered by fossil fuels.
However, Labour did say, including in its manifesto, that a strategic reserve of gas is needed as a last resort, and while the party did not put a figure on it, other bodies suggested the 95% target is consistent with being able to claim the UK has a zero-carbon supply.
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Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has defended the government’s policy. Pic: PA
The Plan for Change: Building
Feb 2023 Mission: Not mentioned.
June 2024 First Step: Not mentioned.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Rebuilding Britain with 1.5 million homes in England and fast-tracking planning decisions for at least 150 major economic infrastructure projects.
Analysis: This contains the big new target of the speech – the 150 decisions on major projects. Sir Keir Starmer is on the side of the builders and the makers. But will they happen? This is the big test of whether those in Whitehall have listened to the speech and will get out of their tepid bath.
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Why hasn’t the UK built more houses?
The Plan for Change: Crime
Feb 2023 Mission: Take back our streets by halving serious violent crime and raising confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest levels.
June 2024 First Step: Clamp down on anti-social behaviour, with more neighbourhood police, paid for by ending wasteful contracts, tough new penalties for offenders, and a new network of youth hubs.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Putting police back on the beat with a named officer for every neighbourhood and 13,000 additional officers, police community support officers (PCSOs) and special constables in neighbourhood roles in England and Wales.
Analysis: The idea of a named officer is new and ambitious. The 13,000 target was in Labour’s manifesto and Yvette Cooper said the extra £100m next year would fund 1,200 new police officers.
Tories claim this means officers would be redeployed from other areas.
The Plan for Change: Education
Feb 2023 Mission: Break down barriers to opportunity by reforming our childcare and education systems, to make sure there is no class ceiling on the ambitions of young people in Britain.
June 2024 First Step: Recruit 6,500 new teachers in key subjects to set children up for life, work and the future, paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Giving children the best start in life, with a record 75% of five-year-olds in England ready to learn when they start school.
Analysis: Labour is saying the proportion of children who are ready for school educationally and socially at five will rise from 67% to 75%.
Rolling out better early years provision is a government priority but the nursery sector has been left chronically underfunded. Tories point out there is less of a focus on schools.
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Thousands of children missing school
The Plan for Change: Health
Feb 2023 Mission: Build an NHS fit for the future that is there when people need it; with fewer lives lost to the biggest killers; in a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer.
June 2024 First Step: Cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments each week, during evenings and weekends, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Ending hospital backlogs to meet the NHS standard of 92% of patients in England waiting no longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment.
Analysis: This is an ambitious, stretching target which has not been hit for almost a decade.
It will take focus and cash, and could come both at the expense of other services like A&E and divert away from Wes Streeting’s big reform plan to move treatments from hospitals to the community.
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The Plan for Change: Migration
Feb 2023 Mission: Not mentioned.
June 2024 First Step: Launch a new Border Security Command with hundreds of new specialist investigators and use counter-terror powers to smash criminal boat gangs.
Dec 2024 Milestone: Not mentioned as a milestone but is mentioned separately.
Analysis: Not one of the milestones, which has confused some, given its prominence in political debate.
Instead this issue – of secure borders – is one of three “foundations”, alongside economic stability and national security. But six milestones plus three foundations is a lot of priorities.
Sir Keir Starmer is under mounting pressure to raise Israel’s bombardment of Gaza with Donald Trump during his UK state visit, after a UN Commission said a genocide was taking place.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey used the president’s arrival on Tuesday night to call for action on the escalating situation, as Israeli forces advance in Gaza City.
Sky News analysis has found thousands of families remain in the city’s crowded tent camps, despite a ground offensive beginning yesterday.
Sir Ed, who is boycotting the state dinner being held for Mr Trump, said Sir Keir must “press” the president now.
He said: “What is happening in Gaza is a genocide. And the president of the United States, who wants a Nobel Peace Prize, is doing nothing to stop it.”
Displaced Palestinians flee northern Gaza. Pic: AP
On Tuesday, a United Nations Commission agreed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza – the first time such an explosive allegation has been made publicly by a UN body.
Israel‘s foreign ministry said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report” and called for the commission to be abolished.
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Is Israel committing genocide?
‘We cannot be bystanders’
Reports suggest the situation will be a talking point between Sir Keir and Mr Trump during his visit.
It comes before the UK is due to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly later this month, along with allies including Canada and France.
In a late night statement, Canada’s foreign ministry described the Gaza City offensive as “horrific”.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed added: “We have long said that Hamas is genocidal and condemned them for their actions.
“Now, I think we have to say that what the Netanyahu government is doing amounts to genocide.”
Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan, a former shadow minister, also called on her party leader to make discussing the situation in Gaza with Mr Trump a “top priority”.
Speaking to Sky News’ Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, she said: “We say ‘never again’ when we look at Bosnia and Rwanda, but here we are again, and it’s been livestreamed, and we’ve all seen it.
“We cannot be bystanders to a genocide.”
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‘We cannot be bystanders’
UN report pulls no punches
The accusation of genocide is made by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
It alleges Israel has been “killing Palestinians or forcing them to live in inhumane conditions that led to death; causing serious bodily or mental harm, including through torture, displacement and sexual crime; deliberately imposing inhumane conditions, and fourthly, imposing measures intending to prevent births”.
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Earlier this month, the International Association of Genocide Scholars also passed a resolution stating that Israel’s conduct passed the threshold of committing genocide.
However, a report from the British government said it had “not concluded” that Israel intended to “destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
Nearly 65,000 people are now believed to have died, according to figures collated by Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Downing Street has insisted its migrant returns scheme with France is not a “shambles” after the High Court blocked a man’s deportation.
Having seen the previous Conservative government’s Rwanda scheme run into trouble with the courts, the Labour administration’s alternative suffered its own setback on Tuesday.
An Eritrean man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was due to be on a flight to France this morning.
He brought a legal claim against the Home Office, with lawyers acting on his behalf saying the case “concerns a trafficking claim”.
They also said he had a gunshot wound to his leg, and would be left destitute if he was deported.
The Home Office said it was reasonable to expect him to have claimed asylum in France before he reached the UK in August, but the ruling went in his favour.
Mr Justice Sheldon granted the man a “brief period of interim relief”.
While the judge said there did not appear to be a “real risk” he would face destitution in France, the trafficking claim required further interrogation.
He said the case should return to court “as soon as is reasonably practical in light of the further representations the claimant […] will make on his trafficking decision”.
A Number 10 spokesperson downplayed the development, insisting removals under the deal with France will start “imminently” and ministers are not powerless in the face of the courts.
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‘One in, one out’ deal: What do we know?
‘We told you so’
The pilot scheme was announced to much fanfare in July, after Emmanuel Macron made a state visit to the UK.
Sir Keir Starmer had hoped the agreement – which would see the UK send asylum seekers who have crossed the Channel back over to France in exchange for migrants with links to Britain – would prove more resilient to court challenges than the Tories’ Rwanda plan.
He wants the number of migrants being returned to France to gradually increase over the course of the scheme, to deter them from coming in small boats.
The pilot came into force last month and is in place until June 2026.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch was quick to say “we told you so” following Tuesday’s court decision, while Reform UK’s Nigel Farage criticised the government’s plan.
Mr Farage – who has said he would deport anyone who arrives in Britain illegally – said: “Even if the policy worked, one in, one out, and with another one in, still means plus one for everyone that crosses the Channel.”
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Migrant deal with France has ‘started’
The small boats crisis represents one of the biggest challenges for the new home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, following her promotion in Sir Keir’s recent reshuffle.
Speaking to Sky News’ Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, Labour peer Maurice Glasman backed her to deliver.
Describing the former justice secretary as “very tough”, he said: “She’s completely for real. I’ve known her for over 10 years – she really wants to see law and order restored.”
The UK has discussed adopting a more crypto-friendly approach with the US in a bid to boost industry innovation and attract more investment to Britain.
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