Keir Starmer plans to reshape the Britain’s ‘flabby’ state. But don’t compare him to Elon Musk

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer has won praise for his efforts to marshal international support for Ukraine as President Donald Trump’seconomic and foreign policies roil the world. Now he’s hoping to translate that into success on a troubled home front.

Faced with a sluggish economy, Starmer announced plans on Thursday to shake up Britain’s civil service, government and health system to make the “flabby” British state more agile and efficient.

That worries trade unions, and many of Starmer’s own lawmakers, who fear his aim of “reshaping the state” will bring job losses and spending cuts.

Starmer linked international and domestic policies — “national security” and “national renewal” — in a speech to workers at a pharmaceutical company in northern England on Thursday.

The British state is “weaker than it’s ever been — overstretched, unfocused, trying to do too much, doing it badly, unable to deliver the security that people need,” he said.

Starmer’s center-left party won a landslide election victory in July, ending 14 years of Conservative government. But polls suggest support for his Labour government has plummeted since then, as public services creak under record demand and economic growth remains stubbornly low.

Last month, the government said it would boost defense spending from the current 2.3% of GDP to 2.5% by 2027, a move that will cost billions. That makes it likely the government will announce tax increases or spending cuts, or both, in its spring budget statement on March 26.

Part of the savings will come by trimming welfare benefits. The government says the changes, expected to be announced in detail next week, will help get more people back to work. But anti-poverty groups and advocates for the disabled worry they will cut support to some of society’s most vulnerable people.

Starmer also vowed to slash regulation and prune “the thicket of red tape,” which he said is blocking new homes and infrastructure, and to ramp up AI use so that one in 10 civil servants is in a tech or digital role within five years.

In a surprise move, he abolished NHS England, the arms-length public body that oversees the state-funded health system for England’s 56 million people. Starmer said that will cut bureaucracy and make the system more efficient. It’s also likely to see thousands of jobs eliminated.

The media have dubbed Starmer’s plans “Project Chainsaw,” a nickname that evokes Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Starmer’s office rejected what it called “that juvenile characterization.”

Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, urged the government “to avoid the incendiary rhetoric and tactics we are seeing in the United States, and to be clear that reforms are about enhancing and not undermining the civil service.”

Soon Starmer will return to the international realm amid deep uncertainty over Ukraine’s future as Washington pushes to end the war. His careful diplomacy has seen Starmer — alongside French President Emmanuel Macron — work to assemble a “coalition of the willing” to secure a future ceasefire, while striving to persuade Trump to maintain support for Kyiv.

Starmer will convene leaders from around 25 countries for a conference call on Saturday to flesh out plans.

He also said on Thursday that the futures of Ukraine and Britain were intertwined.

“If we don’t secure a just peace and a lasting peace, then that insecurity which we’ve already felt will continue … (with) higher prices, higher bills, the cost of living crisis going on even longer,” he said.