Labour pledges devolution to deliver on the promise of Brexit

In a major speech yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer used the phrase popularised by the Leave campaign during the EU referendum in an attempt to win over voters who feel the Tories had not delivered on their Brexit promises.

It comes following Rishi Sunak’s speech at the same venue in East London on Wednesday where he set out five pledges ahead of the next election, which Sir Keir dismissed as “platitudes” with “no ambition”.

Instead the Labour leader said that he would deliver the Brexit campaign message from 2016 and turn it from “a slogan to a solution”.

He said that in Government his party would bring forward a “Take Back Control Bill” that would devolve power from London to communities across the country, granting control over employment, transport, energy and housing.

This could give councils greater powers, as well as the ability to request further powers if they feel they need them.

It comes after Labour’s Gordon Brown-led commission into the future of the UK which recommended unprecedented levels of devolution of powers to regions such as mayors and combined authorities.

“The decisions which create wealth in our communities should be taken by local people with skin in the game, and a huge power shift out of Westminster can transform our economy, our politics and our democracy,” Sir Keir told an audience in Stratford.

“I go back to Brexit. Yes, a whole host of issues were on that ballot. But as I went around the country, campaigning for Remain, I couldn’t disagree with the basic case so many Leave voters made to me.”

Sir Keir, whose party continues to poll around 20 points ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, accused the Prime Minister of offering the country “sticking plaster politics”, but warned that Labour would not be able to spend its way out of the current challenges facing the country.

“None of this should be taken as code for Labour getting its big government chequebook out. Of course investment is required – I can see the damage the Tories have done to our public services as plainly as anyone.

“But we won’t be able to spend our way out of their mess – it’s not as simple as that.”

“There is no substitute for a robust, private sector, creating wealth in every community,” he told the audience.

Sir Keir said: “This year, let’s imagine instead what we can achieve if we match the ambition of the British people.

“You can’t overstate how much a short-term mindset dominates Westminster, and, from there, how it infects all the institutions which try, and fail, to run Britain from the centre.”

“I call it sticking plaster politics,” he said.

“The long-term cure, that always eludes us.”

Introducing her party leader yesterday, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves accused the Conservatives of overseeing the “managed decline” of the UK.

“Are you and your family better off than you were 13 years ago?

“Does anything in Britain work today better than it did 13 years ago?” she asked.

Henri Murison, Chief Executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “Today’s speech by Keir Starmer laid out an ambitious agenda for devolution. It shows he recognises work undertaken by the Commission chaired by Gordon Brown as central to delivering the serious change that places across the country need.

“We at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership have long known that the Brexit vote went much deeper than antagonism toward Brussels alone. Taking back control can and must mean ending overcentralisation and Westminster power-hoarding - it is exactly the right approach.”