Starmer insists Britain is not broken. Here is the truth

PM’s pride in Labour record called into question by immigration crisis, crippling inflation and the looming threat of Reform

22 August 2025 

Daily Telegraph 

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Sir Keir Starmer’s defence of Labour’s record to date has come into question as the Prime Minister attempts to fight back against Reform UK.

Labour is expected to take on Nigel Farage’s insurgent party in the coming weeks by challenging its gloomy assessment of the state of the country.

The shift in approach comes just weeks ahead of Labour’s annual party conference in Liverpool, while Reform continues to enjoy a lead of almost 10 points in the opinion polls.

Sir Keir marked his first anniversary in office last month by telling his Cabinet that they could look back on Labour’s record to date with “pride and achievement”.

On Thursday, a Labour source told Huffington Post: “Reform and the Tories talk about Britain being broken and that’s just not what the Prime Minister thinks.”

But for all the progress Sir Keir claims to have made on the economy, housing, immigration, the NHS and his trade deals, a more detailed analysis of the data tells a very different story.

The economy

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, boasts of having “fixed the foundations” of the UK economy, but there is no shortage of indications the worst is yet to come under Labour.

Britain remains crippled by high inflation, which rose to 3.8 per cent last month – its highest level since January 2024 and approaching double the Bank of England target of 2 per cent.

The number of business closures is at its highest since Covid, and farms are closing at a record rate after Ms Reeves raised taxes by £40bn in her first Budget last autumn.

Further pain is expected in the Chancellor’s second Budget, with some analysts claiming the size of the black hole she has to fill in the public finances is as high as £50bn.

GDP per capita, which is a key measure of living standards, is barely above pre-pandemic levels and is now lower in Britain than debt-laden Italy once adjusted for the cost of living.

The UK’s unemployment rate is also at a four-year high – hitting 4.7 over the latest April to June period – with staff numbers falling last month to their lowest level since October 2023.

Productivity, too, is down on last year and is also barely any higher than it was just before the pandemic.

There was more bleak news on Thursday as it emerged public sector borrowing had climbed to £60bn since April, with economists saying the public finances remained “chronically weak”.

Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said: “Borrowing should be coming down, but under Labour it is higher than the same period last year.

“Starmer and Reeves are gambling with Britain’s future through a string of unfunded U-turns and a refusal to get spending under control. Tax rises in the autumn now look all but inevitable.”

Housing

Labour has promised to build 1.5 million homes during the current parliament, but is already falling short of the flagship pledge that was made by Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary.

Housing data between July and December last year show 90,610 completions, down by more than 10 per cent on the same period under the Conservatives in 2023.

To reach the stated 1.5 million target, Labour would have to build 150,000 homes every six months – falling 60,000 short of that total during its first six months in government.

There were further signs of failure in statistics for the first quarter of 2025, with 36,180 dwellings completed, down by 2 per cent on the previous quarter and 5 per cent on the same time the previous year.

The property market is also sluggish as Ms Reeves mulls a fresh tax raid on homeowners that would probably do further damage.

Property sales volumes recorded by HM Land Registry dropped below 30,000 in April this year from more than 60,000 in the same month in 2024.

Excluding April 2020, the first full month of the first Covid lockdown, this was the lowest volume of sales for any single month in the past 20 years.

Migration

Sir Keir was quick to make hay with the Conservatives’ record on immigration, accusing them of overseeing an “open borders experiment” towards the end of their 14 years in power.

Statistics show that net migration may have fallen in 2024, a figure for which the Prime Minister claimed credit, but illegal immigration is at record highs under Labour.

Just under 28,000 Channel migrants have reached the UK by small boat so far in 2025 – a record level that is more than 30 per cent higher than the previous peak of 21,501 in 2022.

The statistics have made a mockery of Sir Keir’s pledge to “smash the gangs”, and he is also yet to reap any benefits from a returns agreement reached with France this summer.

Evidence suggests 50 per cent more migrants have crossed the channel since Sir Keir’s “one in, one out” deal with Emmanuel Macron than in the same period last year.

And official figures published on Thursday showed the number of asylum seekers in hotels rose just under 2,500 during Labour’s first year in office, the equivalent to almost 50 a week.

It has cast doubt on Sir Keir and Ms Reeves’s promise to end the use of hotels – which have been the focus of anti-illegal immigration protests in recent weeks – to house Channel migrants by the end of the current Parliament.

There is likely to be further political pain ahead after asylum claims over the 12 months to June 30 hit a record high of 111,084, up 14.4 per cent on the same period last year.

The NHS

Sir Keir and Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, have both claimed that the progress in the NHS has been one of Labour’s strongest achievements in the past year.

The health service’s backlog fell slowly throughout Labour’s first year in charge, but is still two-thirds higher than in the months before Covid.

And the backlog rose to 7.37 million as of the end of June, an increase of 10,000 on the previous month that was driven by an increase in the number of patients waiting for appointments.

Experts have also revealed that the data surrounding NHS waiting lists was “misleading” because it did not publish the number of “unreported removals”, patients who no longer need appointments for a variety of reasons and have been deleted from the list.

Just over 66 per cent of A&E patients were seen within four hours as of June this year, which is only marginally better than the 74.6 per cent figure for June 2024.

While Sir Keir does not seem to believe Britain is broken, his own Health Secretary takes the opposite view of the NHS and declared that the health service was broken just an hour after his appointment to the Cabinet on July 5 last year.

Trade deals

Sir Keir has spent so much of his premiership focussing on diplomacy and international relations that focus groups have branded him “never here Keir”.

The Prime Minister would argue that his jet-setting has paid off in the form of three trade agreements with the United States, the European Union and India – all deals that previous Tory governments had tried and failed to reach.

But the pact with Donald Trump’s White House stops short of a full trade deal and represents only a very small boost for the British economy, with Monks predicting it will boost GDP by just 0.1 per cent.

Sir Keir Starmer struck a trade deal with Donald Trump’s White House, but Monks predicts it will only boost the UK’s GDP by 0.1 per centCredit: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The deal with the US has also proven to be the final nail in the coffin for a British bioethanol factory after Sir Keir allowed Mr Trump to supply Britain with 1.4bn litres of duty-free ethanol, prompting one of just two plants in Britain to close.

The Government was also accused of implementing a two-tier tax system after signing a trade deal that exempts Indian migrants from paying National Insurance.

To rub salt into the wounds of British businesses, the agreement was announced just a month after companies in the UK were hit by a rise in their National Insurance contributions.

Sir Keir promised his reset in relations with the European Union would be “good for our borders”, but the ongoing Channel crisis implies it has led to no improvements to date.

Official data also suggest that the reset deal risks handing the EU up to £6bn of British fish.