‘Things will get worse’ – PM Starmer says Britain’s problems will take time to resolve By Reuters

By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Keir Starmer will warn Britons next week that the changes needed to fix Britain’s many problems will take time, saying “things will get worse before we get better” in a speech which he describes as a chance to get even with the public.

After being elected prime minister in July’s landslide election, Starmer has repeatedly blamed the former Tory government for leaving Britain in a state of disrepair, which he said allowed “thugs” to unleash anti-Semitism riots. -migrants from this month.

In a speech on Tuesday, a week before Britain’s parliament returns to work after a summer break, Starmer will say “change will not happen overnight” but that his government is determined to tackle a multitude of problems, from overflowing prisons to long prison terms. waiting lists for health services.

“I said change won’t happen overnight. When there is rot deep in the heart of a structure, you can’t just cover it up. You can’t struggle or rely on quick fixes. You have to revise everything. ,” Starmer will say, according to excerpts of his speech provided by his office.

“We’ve inherited not just an economic black hole, but a societal black hole, and that’s why we need to step up and do things differently. Part of that is being honest with people about the choices we face and how hard that will be. Honestly, things are going to get worse before we get better.”

Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, was forced to cancel his summer holiday this month to tackle riots targeting Muslims and migrants. The riots began after the killing of three young girls in northern England was wrongly blamed on an Islamist migrant based on online misinformation.

Starmer said the Conservative government’s failure to tackle the problems had widened fissures in society, making it more difficult to deal with riots than when he was Britain’s chief prosecutor from 2008 to 2013.

“And those people who were throwing stones, burning cars, making threats, they just didn’t know the system was broken. They bet on him, they played, they saw the cracks in our society after 14 years of populism and failure and we exploited them, that’s what we inherited,” he will say.

Appealing to what he calls Britain’s workers, such as teachers, nurses, small business owners and firefighters, Starmer will say his government has taken “the first steps towards the change that people voted for” on July 4.

But he will say that the poor state of Britain’s public finances – which its finance minister says are on track to show a 22 billion pound ($29 billion) overspend this year – means the government he will have to make difficult decisions.

“If we don’t take tough measures everywhere, we will not be able to fix the foundations of the country as we need,” he will say. “I won’t shy away from making unpopular decisions now if it’s the right thing for the country in the long run. That’s what a working government is all about.”

($1 = £0.7571)