Labour's Keir Starmer vows to serve interests and earn respect of working people

Opposition leader seeks to sway voters with first major speech of campaign in Conservative constituency

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer gives a speech during a general election campaign event in Lancing on Monday. Reuters

Keir Starmer said the general election amounts to a choice about "whose side are you on" as he sought to convince voters Labour is ready to govern during his first major speech of the campaign on Monday.

The Labour leader promised to stand up for working people and restore trust in British politics, saying 14 years of Conservative "chaos" has led to a "crisis" in national culture.

Speaking in Tory-held Lancing, West Sussex, he said: "Elections are about more than individual changes and policies, but about values, temperament, character and a bigger question: whose side are you on?

"Who do you hold in your mind's eye when you are making decisions?

"Everything I have fought for has been shaped by my life, every change I have made to this party has been about a cause, the answer to that question, the only answer: the working people of this country delivering on their aspirations, earning their respect, serving their interests."

Mr Starmer acknowledged that despite Labour's commanding opinion poll lead, many voters were not fully persuaded about his party.

"I know there are countless people who haven't decided how they'll vote in this election. They're fed-up with the failure, chaos and division of the Tories, but they still have questions about us: has Labour changed enough? Do I trust them with my money, our borders, our security?

"My answer is 'yes, you can', because I have changed this party permanently."

Mr Starmer took over the leadership of Labour in 2020, a year after the party suffered its worst general election defeat since 1935.

Keir Starmer through the years - in pictures

Keir Starmer has been the Labour party's leader since 2020, and is now the UK's prime minister. Here The National looks back through his political career. Getty Images

Mr Starmer speaking in Westminster, London, in May after Rishi Sunak announced the general election for July 4. AP

Mr Starmer speaks to Labour supporters at Harlow Town Football Club's stadium in Essex, on the eve of local elections in May. Getty Images

Mr Starmer talks to Dan Poulter at the Francis Crick Institute in London in April, after the MP had defected from the Conservative Party to Labour. Getty Images

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Mr Starmer during the launch of Mr Khan's mayoral re-election campaign in March, which proved successful. Getty Images

Mr Starmer addresses the Labour Business Conference in London in February. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and Mr Sunak at the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament in November 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer addresses delegates at the National Annual Women's Conference in Liverpool in October 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer with his shadow cabinet in London in September 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer speaks to supporters in Chatham after a Labour win in local elections in May 2023. Getty Images

Joining party activists at a national phone bank on local elections day in London in May 2023. Getty Images

Mr Starmer meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster, London, in February 2023. Getty Images

The Labour leader and his wife Victoria leave the stage after his speech at the party conference in Liverpool in September 2022. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and then-UK prime minister Liz Truss leave the Palace of Westminster in September 2022. Getty Images

With former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair, centre, and Gordon Brown, right, at St James's Palace, London, where King Charles III was formally proclaimed monarch in September 2022. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and then-prime minister Boris Johnson attend the State Opening of Parliament in May 2022. Getty Images

Mr Starmer makes his keynote speech to the Labour conference for the first time as party leader in September 2021 in Brighton. Getty Images

The gloves are on during a visit to the Vulcan Boxing Club in Hull, East Yorkshire, in April 2021. Getty Images

Mr Starmer in talks with care home workers and family members of residents at Cafe 1899 in Gedling Country Park during the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Getty Images

Mr Starmer, then-shadow secretary of state for exiting the EU, addresses the audience at a hustings in March 2020 in Dudley. Getty Images

Mr Starmer and then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn talk to the media at the EU Commission headquarters in March 2019 in Brussels. Getty Images

Mr Starmer delivers a speech on Labour's Brexit policy at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London in April 2017. Getty Images

Holding a press conference as Director of Public Prosecutions to outline new guidelines on assisted suicide, in London in September 2009. Getty Images

Human rights advisers Mr Starmer and Jane Gordon with the Northern Ireland Policing Board annual human rights report 2006, at the Dunadry Hotel in Co Antrim. Getty Images

In an attack on the Conservatives' record, he said: "For a long time now, working people have believed opportunity in Britain is stacked against them.

"But now we are at a dangerous new point, close to crossing a Rubicon of trust, not just in politics but in many of the institutions that are meant to serve and protect the British people.

"A moment where people no longer believe their values or interests carry the respect of those in power.

"When you put that alongside a government that over 14 years has left living standards in this country worse than when they found them, that has torched any semblance of standards in public life, Westminster parties that broke the rules they put in place to save lives and rules they expected you to follow but ignored themselves, then you get a crisis in nothing less than who we are as a nation."

Keir Starmer speaks to party supporters after making his first keynote speech of the general election campaign at Lancing Parish Hall in West Sussex. PA

A teenage 'Dad's Army'

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the weekend announced the Conservative Party's plans to bring back National Service if it wins power at the July 4 general election, in the first major policy announcement of the campaign.

He said 18 year olds would be given a choice of joining the military full-time for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year “volunteering” in the community.

Mr Sunak said the policy would help unite society in an “increasingly uncertain world” and give young people a “shared sense of purpose”.

Mr Starmer dismissed the compulsory conscription plan as a "teenage Dad's Army".

He said the policy would be "paid for by cancelling levelling-up funding and money from tax avoidance that we would use to invest in our NHS".

"All elections are a choice and this is a clear one: levelling-up and the NHS with Labour or more desperate chaos with the Tories," he added.

Lib Dems in the mix?

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said his party could become the third biggest in the Commons after the election, overtaking the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Speaking ahead of the launch of the Scottish Lib Dems' election campaign, Mr Davey said he thought there would be "more liberals than nationalists" in the new parliament.

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland on Monday, he highlighted four seats north of the border his party are targeting, all of which are currently held by SNP MPs.

These include Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire – a portion of which was held by former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy before he lost it to the retiring former SNP Westminster boss Ian Blackford – and Mid Dunbartonshire, the newly configured constituency lost by former Lib Dem chief Jo Swinson to the SNP's Amy Callaghan in 2019.

"I think we have a real chance, when we get to July 5 – the day after polling day – there will be more liberals than nationalists in the next parliament," he said.

"I think the Liberal Democrats can be the third party in UK politics again."