Keir Starmer hints 4 times he'll ditch uni fees vow saying 'a lot has changed'
Keir Starmer has hinted four times that he will ditch his vow to scrap £9,250-a-year uni tuition fees, saying “a lot has changed” since 2020.
The promise was among Mr Starmer’s “10 pledges” when he ran for Labour leader, a string of which he has since junked.
Mr Starmer today defended ditching other pledges like an end to NHS outsourcing or scrapping Universal Credit, saying: “When I was running for leader I made pledges which reflected my values.
“Since then, we're now three years on, a lot has changed.
“We’ve been through COVID, we are still going through an awful conflict in Ukraine, and the Tory government has done huge damage to our economy.”
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He added: “We will not be able to do everything we need to do in the first five years of a Labour government.”
In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, he refused four times to stand by his 2020 pledge to “support the abolition of tuition fees”.
"We're now three years on, a lot has changed," Keir Starmer said (PA)He said “the tuition fee system needs to be changed” but “we need to look at that promise again”, due to the “damage that's been done to the economy”.
“[Chancellor] Rachel Reeves and I've had to be very clear that we will only make commitments that we can afford the next general election,” he added.
But he defended his position, saying the public will not always “prefer someone who dogmatically insists that whatever was the position before can never change, even when the circumstances have changed.
“The damage done to our economy is huge. We're going to inherit a weakened damaged economy and we have to be prepared for that.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Labour’s leader - who campaigned hard for a second Brexit referendum - insisted the UK will not “always be poorer” outside the EU single market.
Echoing Tony Blair’s 1997 campaign song Things Can Only Get Better, he said: “So long as we improve upon the deal we've got, I don't accept that.
"What people desperately want going into the election is to feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that things can get better.”
Elsewhere he confirmed he had "concerns" over Scotland's gender recognition reforms - but refused to say if he would overrule them if he was Prime Minister.
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Rishi Sunak is considering overriding Nicola Sturgeon's reforms for trans people in Scotland (PA)He said he wants to 'modernise' the law for trans people to change their legal gender and remove 'indignities', but would not be pinned down on specifics, adding the issue has become a 'toxic political football’.
But he did confirm “I don’t think you are” old enough at 16 to change your legal gender - a key plank of the Scottish government’s new law.
Rishi Sunak is said to be ready to block the Scottish law in a constitutional clash. Keir Starmer did not say if he would do the same.
Mr Starmer said: "I have concerns about the provision in Scotland, in particular the age reduction to 16 and in particular the rejection of our amendment in relation to the Equalities Act.
"But across the whole of the area, I think we should modernise the law.
"I think we need a respectful debate that recognises the different arguments that are being made. At the moment, this is being treated as a political football from start to finish and I don't think that actually advances the cause of anyone."
Mr Starmer said at the end of the interview: “When I was a child I didn't dream of being Prime Minister. When I came into Parliament I didn't dream of being Prime Minister.
“This is duty, this is the obligation to serve our country and to improve our lives.”
He added: “People from day one have been saying to me, okay, put out your bold ideas now. Don't concentrate so much on changing the party. Wrong.”
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