The Record
Keir Starmer entered No. 10 on 5 July 2024 with a landslide mandate, a 412-seat Labour majority, and a clear list of 10 leadership pledges made during his 2020 campaign to become Labour leader. Nine months later, seven of those pledges have been broken or abandoned, and his approval rating has collapsed to record depths for a sitting Prime Minister.
The pattern is consistent. Early moves on National Insurance, winter fuel payments, asylum seekers in hotels, and tuition fees all reversed public commitments. Some reversals came quickly—like the tuition fee reversal, justified with the phrase "there is no money"—while others were quietly dropped as media attention moved elsewhere.
The National Insurance Increase
One of Starmer's most emphatic pledges was a firm commitment: "No tax rises on working people." The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the UK's independent fiscal watchdog, later confirmed that the 2024 National Insurance increase—raised from 8% to 10%—falls on workers, not employers, through suppressed wage growth. Starmer's office never publicly disputed this finding.
Energy Bills: £300 Pledge, £170 Rise
In 2021, Starmer pledged to cut energy bills by £300. By October 2024, energy bills had actually risen £170 from their 2024 baseline, and the pledge was quietly dropped from Labour's messaging. The government pointed to external factors—wholesale energy prices—but made no specific policy moves to deliver the promised cut.
Hotels for Asylum Seekers: The Inherited Problem That Got Worse
Starmer promised to "end hotel use for asylum seekers" by the end of 2024. However, according to Home Office data released in March 2025, 32,345 asylum seekers were still in hotel accommodation—higher than the inherited figure of 31,250 when Labour took office. The government shifted its messaging to claim progress on the Rwanda scheme and offshore processing, but the central pledge remained unmet.
Winter Fuel Payments: 10 Million Pensioners Affected
In the October 2024 Budget, the government announced a cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners not on pension credit. The decision affected approximately 10 million pensioners, removing entitlement worth up to £300 per year. This directly contradicted Starmer's leadership pledge to "protect winter fuel payment for all pensioners."
Free Movement: The Reversed Red Line
In 2020, Starmer said: "I will never do a U-turn on free movement. That is a red line for me." By 2025, the government had ruled out free movement with the EU completely, even as a long-term option. This U-turn appeared in UK-EU relations documents but was not presented as a reversal of his earlier stance.
Tuition Fees: "No Money"
The pledge to abolish tuition fees was dropped within Starmer's first months in office, with junior ministers citing an absence of allocated funds. The policy had been central to Labour manifestos since 2010 but was de-prioritized without a public announcement or campaign reset.
Other Broken and Partial Pledges
Promised day-one unfair dismissal rights were watered down following employer lobbying. The promised "ethics and integrity commission" was downgraded into a rebrand of existing watchdog bodies. Nationalisation plans for rail, mail, energy and water saw rail begin but the others stalled indefinitely. NHS waiting times—promised to fall—remained stuck at 7.54 million, with no pathway to the promised reductions.