Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “sweat blood” to win back voters to his party in the years ahead, but admitted it would be a “slow, long, hard road”.
Sir Keir said there was still a “trust issue” for his party after facing questions from a group of sceptical former Labour voters in Blackpool.
“This was always going to be a tough gig,” he told the BBC. “I never thought that this would be turned around in a year or 18 months. This is a slow, long, hard road. But every vote has to be earned.”
With Labour floundering behind the Tories in the polls, Sir Keir said he and the party “do have enough time” to turn around their fortunes before the next general election.
“What I heard [voters] saying is, ‘I have lost trust in Labour, but I might, I might have trust in the future but it’s down to you to earn it.’ And that I will do, you know – sweating blood over the next days, weeks, months and years into next general election.”
When told some of the voters in Blackpool hadn’t heard of him before, the Labour leader said he was “utterly frustrated” the pandemic had prevented him from getting around the country.
The Labour leader outlined three policies to the audience – a jobs guarantee for workers under 25, a recovery fund for children’s education after the pandemic, and a “buy British” plan for public spending.
Asked about the response from Labour voters, he said: “I’d much rather the sort of robust discussion I had tonight, than the warm bath of simply talking to people who already agree with me.”
Sir Keir refused to say whether or not he would allow Jeremy Corbyn, who now sits as an independent after he lost the whip, to sit again as a Labour MP again – saying only that a process was being run by the chief whip.
He said: “To turn this into an argument about Jeremy Corbyn is to do exactly what I want the Labour Party to stop doing. We have been looking internally, we need to turn ourselves inside out, and be talking to and engaging with voters.”
It follows a warning from Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar that Sir Keir must get the party in a position to win a general election to help him north of the border.
Mr Sarwar has been in London this week for talks with Sir Keir, warning senior party figures of Scotland’s central importance in transforming the party’s fortunes.
“It is on me to fix the Scottish Labour Party but what also helps is a UK Labour Party that people believe will win a general election. They have work to do to get Labour into a position to do that,” he said.
Mr Sarwar added: “Until we get Labour back on the pitch again in Scotland, credible again, there is no route back to a UK Labour government.”
