Dealing with hecklers, UK Labour’s Starmer vows to shatter ‘class ceiling’
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British opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer vowed on Thursday to shatter the “class ceiling” with his education reforms if elected to government, in a speech interrupted by climate campaigners who accused him of U-turning on his green pledges.
Starmer, running way ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls before an election expected next year, again criticised Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for entrenching inequality in Britain by failing to modernise its education system.
But the Labour leader had to first deal with protesters who unfurled a banner behind his podium to demand he “stop making U-turns” in criticism of the party’s watering down of a commitment to spend 28 billion pounds ($35.7 billion) every year on green industries.
Telling them that he had already promised to deliver clean power by 2030 as officials walked them from the podium, Starmer was quick to continue with his speech on education reform – Labour’s fifth mission statement in its bid to take power.
Starmer told college students in the southern English town of Gillingham, a Labour government would “tear down the barriers to opportunity that hold this country and its people back” with a plan he described as his “personal cause”.
“I (will) drag our education system into the future. And shatter the class ceiling,” he said, promising to raise standards in early education, a review of the curriculum and a greater emphasis on vocational education.
Starmer’s Labour Party looks set to win Britain’s next general election but he says he is not complacent and has come under fire from some critics for what they say is making U-turns on policies and earlier commitments.
His team says he is a pragmatist, one who reacts to changing circumstances. Last month, Labour said the party would need to meet its target spend for its green prosperity plan more gradually because of high interest rates.
But his changing positions have enraged critics, with the protesters on Thursday telling him: “Stop making U-turns Keir. We need a green new deal now.” Starmer later said Labour had “double-downed” on its green promises.
