Keir Starmer has pledged to prioritize a “Take Back Control Bill” in the first year of a brand new Labour Government to shift power away from Westminster and to local communities.
The Labour Leader harkened back to the “take back control” message of the pro-Brexit campaign group Vote Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.
“We will take the take-back-of-control message,” he said. “But we will turn it from a slogan to a solution, from a slogan to a change.”
The party would “extend control” beyond Westminster, Starmer added.
“We will…hand down new powers over employment support, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare and how councils manage their finances,” he stated.
Some of the devolution policies were outlined in the former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s recent Constitutional Review, commissioned by Starmer.
The new bill would be part of a larger attempt to reset British politics and the UK economy to create “a decade of national renewal,” Starmer said.
The Labour Leader also pledged tougher targets for green energy with all electricity going zero-carbon by 2030, as well as an increase in NHS doctors and nurses.
But he vowed to lead with strict fiscal rules and said that he wouldn’t look to the outside for guidance or a “checkbook” to solve the country’s problems.
“We won’t be able to get out of the mess by spending,” Starmer said. “It’s not as simple as that.”
Starmer spoke on Thursday morning at the Here East campus in Stratford, where Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave his own New Year’s speech on Wednesday.