Starmer Urges Cabinet Ministers To Ignore Polls And Keep Their Nerve
Keir Starmer hosted a Political Cabinet on Tuesday morning (Alamy)
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Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged cabinet to keep its "nerve" and "belief" as opinion polls continue to paint a gloomy picture of Labour's electoral prospects.
In a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, Starmer said they must prepare for the fight of their political lives against Nigel Farage's Reform UK, and that he does not "underestimate the scale of the task".
He said: "But I have no doubt about this team. Governments do not lose because polls go down. They lose when they lose belief or nerve. We will do neither.”
Starmer addressed his most senior ministers at the first cabinet meeting of 2026.
They assembled with Labour entering the new year far behind Farage's right-wing party in the opinion polls and facing bruising results at the May local elections. A YouGov survey published on Tuesday put Labour behind the Conservatives for the first time since the 2024 general election.
The PM also continues to face questions over his leadership and suggestions that he could face a challenge this year.
Starmer framed the choice facing the country as “a Labour government renewing the country or a Reform movement that feeds on grievance, decline and division".
Speaking about Farage's Reform, Starmer added: “They want a weaker state, they want to inject bile into our communities, they want to appease Putin. This is the fight of our political lives and one that we must relish."
Senior ministers also discussed centre-left parties in Norway, Australia and Canada that have managed to stage electoral recoveries.
To stage an electoral revival of its own, the Labour government must “keep a relentless focus on the cost of living, show relentless delivery of change people can feel and bring relentless clarity to drawing the choice ahead", the Prime Minister said this morning.
While the government had hoped that its actions to tackle the cost of living would be the main political headline this week, US President Donald Trump's intervention in Venezuela, which resulted in the capture of the country's leader, Nicolas Maduro, and his continued threats against Greenland and Denmark, has overshadowed Westminster politics.
