Keir Starmer Asks Cynical Voters To Believe In Politics Again

Labour leader Keir Starmer has issued a plea to the British public to believe in the country and in politics again with 2024 likely to be an election year, and attacked the Conservative government’s record in power, which he said had driven "the country I love into the rocks of decline".

Giving a speech on Thursday morning from a marginal seat near Bristol, Starmer said he wanted to give “a new year message of hope”. A general election must be called by the end of 2024, and Labour is currently 18 points ahead in the polls. 

Starmer addressed what is believed to be great swathes of undecided voters, and acknowledged that there had been a "tide of cynicism in Westminster" and an "understandable despair of a downtrodden country".

"I will ask the British people to believe in it again," Starmer said.

"I will say you're right to be anti-Westminster, right to be angry about what politics has become. But hold on to the flickering hope in your heart that things can be better, because they can.

"You can choose it. You can choose the hope of national renewal, the responsibility of service, what politics can and should be, And you can reject the pointless populist gestures, the low road cynicism that the Tories believe is all you deserve."

He also attacked the politics of "sleaze" and "cronyism", and that he had "hated the futility of opposition" for the last four years and "powerlessness" of it.

The Labour leader's speech warned that 2024 will see "any opportunity for division" being "exploited for political potential", and said it would be a "huge test" for Labour to not only defeat the Conservatives electorally, but "defeat their entire way of doing politics".

He promised that a Labour government would bring about "a total overhaul of