Starmer says UK ‘turning the corner’ at first Cabinet meeting of 2026

Sir Keir Starmer has called for Cabinet discipline and a focus on tackling the cost of living in the first meeting of his top team in a potentially critical year for his premiership.

He told his senior ministers that their challenge for 2026 is to show “hard work, focus and determination” in helping to ease the financial burden on households.

With Labour facing a difficult set of elections in England, Scotland and Wales in May, the Prime Minister is under pressure to show results.

The attempt to focus on domestic matters comes as Donald Trump’s US continues to threaten Greenland and with Sir Keir set to join world leaders in Paris for a meeting of Ukraine’s allies.

Sir Keir said: “Yes, there’s a world of uncertainty and upheaval, but tackling the cost of living remains and must remain our focus.”

With speculation persisting in Westminster about the possibility of Sir Keir facing a leadership challenge if Labour performs badly in May’s local and devolved parliamentary elections, the Prime Minister urged his Cabinet to deliver results.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is widely viewed as a potential successor and Sir Keir pointed to the need to demonstrate improvements in the NHS as he called for hard work and determination from across the Cabinet.

“At the next general election we will be judged on whether we’ve delivered on things that really matter – do people feel better off, are public services improving, for which they will look to the NHS, and do people feel more safe and secure in their own community,” he said.

“They are the issues we will be judged on at the next general election, that is our focus.

“That will require hard work, focus and determination from all of us.

“Together, as a team, we will rise to that challenge and deliver for the whole country.”

He insisted the Government’s measures were paying off, with increases in the minimum wage, the Bank of England’s reductions in interest rates and help with energy bills all helping ease the burden on squeezed household incomes.

At a meeting of the political Cabinet – without civil service officials but with Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell and general secretary Hollie Ridley in attendance – the Prime Minister said: “This will be an important year as we show that renewal is becoming reality and that Britain is turning the corner.

“Getting our country back on track is hard, difficult work and we will reject the politics of easy answers and gimmicks that, frankly, got us here in the first place.”

Labour has plummeted in the opinion polls since the 2024 general election landslide, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK enjoying consistent leads and hopeful of successes in May’s contests in English councils and in Wales.

In Scotland, Labour faces a challenge from Reform as both parties seek to oust the SNP.

Accusing Reform of wanting to “inject bile into our communities” and “appease Putin”, Sir Keir told his ministers: “This is the fight of our political lives and one that we must relish.

“I do not underestimate the scale of the task. 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.”

The political part of the meeting took place after an official Cabinet meeting, with civil servants present, that lasted less than 10 minutes.

Elsewhere, Sir Keir has appointed Axel Heitmueller as the head of his delivery unit and as an expert adviser on delivery.

The delivery unit, a small group of officials sitting at the heart of Government, is aimed at helping to fulfil key campaign and policy pledges.

Mr Heitmueller was previously the Prime Minister’s expert adviser on health, and was a senior fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, according to his LinkedIn.