Sir U-turn strikes again! Starmer adds uni fees to broken promise list

Sir Keir Starmer is facing a growing backlash over Labour's decision to increase tuition fees for the first time in eight years, as he is accused of yet another policy U-turn.

The PM is under pressure after yesterday's announcement that from the start of the 2025/26 academic year fees for domestic undergraduate students in England will rise to £9,535 per year.

They had been frozen at a maximum of £9,250 since 2017, and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told MPs it was necessary to 'secure the future of higher education' amid financial challenges.

It comes as university leaders have warned of significant financial concerns as a result of frozen tuition fees paid by domestic students and a fall in the number of international students. 

However Sir Keir campaigned for the Labour leadership in 2020 saying he would 'support the abolition of tuition fees.

The Tories leapt on the prime minister's latest U-turn, which came days after the Budget increased taxes by £40billion. 

Since becoming Labour leader he has reversed his position on issues ranging from tax to benefits and gender identity. 

Conservative Party co-chairman Nigel Huddleston told Sky News: 'I'm concerned about it because it's yet another example of what we're seeing as a pattern here, of Labour in opposition saying one thing, and then in government doing another, usually at the cost of somebody – in this case students.'

But Health Secretary Wes Streeting, a former president of the National Union of Students, defended the PM.

Asked about previous comments by Sir Keir Starmer on his desire to abolish tuition fees, Mr Streeting told Times Radio: 'I think that would be a fair criticism if Keir Starmer hadn't said very clearly well ahead of the general election that because of the state of the economy, because of the state of the public finances, we would not be able to go into the general election in our manifesto committing to abolish tuition fees.

'He was upfront about that, took the criticism at the time and said he would rather be honest ahead of the election instead of letting let people down afterwards.'

In 2020, Sir Keir pledged to uphold Labour's commitment to abolish tuition fees during his party leadership campaign.

At the time, the then-shadow Brexit secretary said his party must stand by its plan to 'end the national scandal of spiralling student debt' by scrapping the fees.

Three years later, Sir Keir revealed he was preparing to 'move on' from this commitment.

In May 2023, he said the current student fee system was 'unfair' but that the country found itself in a 'different financial situation' to when Labour had pledged to scrap the fees.

In August 2023, the Labour leader insisted he would put in place a 'fairer' deal for students and admitted that he would not be able to afford to attend university today because of the cost.

During the general election campaign in June, Sir Keir said he had backtracked on his promise to abolish tuition fees as he was a 'common sense politician' and he wanted to prioritise getting the NHS 'back on its feet'.

Budget tax increases

Last week Sir Keir was accused of telling a 'double lie' by insisting the Budget would not be a 'war on Middle Britain' nor break Labour manifesto promises.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves hit employers with a whopping £25 billion increase in their National Insurance bills and announced a welter of other tax rises on Wednesday.

But the Prime Minister had denied that he misled voters when he pledged during the General Election campaign not to hit 'working people' with increases to VAT, National Insurance or income tax.

Green prosperity plan

Sir Keir faced a credibility crisis before the election after ditching the central plank of his environmental economic policy.

After spending months defending the need to put the UK at the forefront of a new global industry and provide sustainable and cheap power for millions he U-turned by dramatically scaling it back by around 80 per cent.

Blaming the Tories' handling of the economy, especially under Liz Truss, he said that instead of spending £28billion on its Green Prosperity Plan every year, a future Labour government would spend less than that over the course of the next parliament, if elected.

The new plan involves a headline figure of £23.5 billion over five years, or £4.7billion a year. And it plans to part fund the plans with a bigger attack on energy firms via the windfall tax.

The Energy Profits Levy, which is due to run until March 2028 will now run until the end of the Parliament, probably late 2029. The rate at which excess profits are taxed will also rise from 75 per cent to 78 per cent, putting it on a par with a tax levied in Norway.

The move emerged just a day after the leader insisted the package is 'desperately needed'. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has been striking a very different tone, warning that she will not allow any policies in the manifesto that are unaffordable.

Gender identity

In April Sir Keir said his views on gender issues 'start with biology' despite previously stating that a women could have a penis.

The Labour leader said he backed blocking trans women from female-only hospital wards and prisons following the Government's proposed changes to the NHS constitution.

The changes will see trans women banned from female-only wards and also give female patients the right to request to be treated by a doctor of the same sex for intimate care.

Speaking on ITV's Good Morning Britain about the proposed changes, Sir Keir said: 'There's a distinction between sex and gender. The Labour Party has championed women's rights for a very long time.'

The Labour leader has repeatedly faced questions about his views on transgender issues.

He has previously said that '99.9% of women' do not have a penis and in 2021 he said it was 'not right' for Labour MP Rosie Duffield to state that 'only women have a cervix'.

Two-child benefit cap

Sir Keir faced his first Labour rebellion just two weeks after being elected during a vote on child benefits in the House of Commons.

The new prime minister saw seven of his own MPs defy the party whip to vote for an SNP amendment which would have scrapped the two-child benefit cap.

The group was made up of prominent figures from the left-wing of the party, including former key Corbynites John McDonnell, Richard Burgon and Rebecca Long Bailey, who were later suspended for defying him.

But abolishing the limit on the benefit was once one of his own policies.

In February 2023, in a diatribe against how the benefit system works, he tweeted: 'It’s time to scrap Universal Credit and create a social security system fit for the 21st century with compassion and justice as its founding principles.

We must scrap the inhuman Work Capability Assessments and private provision of 'disability assessments (e.g. ATOS), scrap punitive sanctions, two-child limit and benefits cap.'