More policy reveals are expected at the conference ahead of the PM’s keynote speech Tuesday, including on infrastructure and health, senior officials familiar with his thinking told POLITICO.
Yet many of Starmer’s own MPs and ministers are arriving in Liverpool doubtful it will turn the tide of public frustration with Labour.
Starmer won a 174-seat majority in July 2024, yet his administration has been beset by scandals, revamps and resignations of his most trusted aides. Tricky economic decisions have angered pensioners, businesses, farmers and the aid sector. Starmer’s team is already braced for two crisis points — a tax-raising budget on Nov. 26, and Scottish and Welsh elections in May 2026, after which many of his MPs believe he could face a leadership challenge.
A YouGov poll Friday projected Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK to win 311 seats in a general election (up from five now and just short of a majority), to 144 for Labour. Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester who has called for more state spending and wealth taxes, is openly touting himself as Starmer’s successor — his brooding headshot filling the cover of this week’s center-left New Statesman magazine.
In conversations with POLITICO, more than a dozen MPs and officials, granted anonymity so they could speak frankly, revealed a grim mood heading into what is supposed to be a celebratory week in Liverpool.
“I’m gobsmacked that we are in this position 14 months after getting into government, after 14 years in opposition,” said one government minister. “People hate us. It feels like we’ve lost the public.”