TUC says Starmer needs to actually improve living standards in 2026

Paul Nowak of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has made it clear that living standards must be Labour’s key focus in 2026:

Boosting living standards has to be the government’s absolute focus in 2026. https://t.co/H9ydGfl5ZW

— Paul Nowak (@nowak_paul) December 27, 2025

Unpredictable

Among other suggestions, Nowak has called for Labour to strengthen ties with the EU to boost the British economy. It comes as an increasingly erratic Donald Trump is trying to force us into accepting tech and farming deals which will damage our homegrown industries:

Don't rule out EU customs union – and improve living standards, TUC boss tells Starmer: My interview with ⁦@nowak_paul⁩ https://t.co/122Ka1KLEY

— iain watson (@iainjwatson) December 27, 2025

Speaking to the Guardian, Nowak said:

The government needs to do whatever it can to build the closest possible positive working relationship with Europe economically and politically as well … up to and including the customs union.

I think that’s been reinforced by the events of the past 12 months where Trump and the White House have proven the US is not the predictable ally we’ve always depended on.

The US isn’t just less predictable, it’s also talking about the UK in the same fashion that it once talked about Iraq and North Korea:

"France and Britain have nuclear weapons. If they allow themselves to be overwhelmed with destructive moral ideas, then you allow nuclear weapons to fall in the hands of people who can actually cause very, very serious harm to the US."

JD Vance to me.https://t.co/4Jz5HXLh4G

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) December 22, 2025

You could argue this is Britain’s just desserts for supporting every US atrocity since WWII. While there is a truth to that, we all have to live here, and we shouldn’t roll over and let America subject us to the shock doctrine.

Nowak added:

Whether you voted for Brexit or not, people recognise we’ve got a botched Brexit deal. They can see the impact of that bad Brexit deal on things like prices in supermarkets.

Nowak isn’t wrong, but it’s also the case that supermarkets have enjoyed obscene profits in recent years. There’s a word for prices increasing at the same time that profits skyrocket, and that word is ‘profiteering’.

FUN FACT: Supermarket giants like Tesco and Asda increased their operating profits last year by 66%.

We're not in a 'cost of living crisis' – we're in a 'cost of GREED crisis'.

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) October 19, 2025

The man at the moment

Nowak failed to throw his support behind Starmer, telling the Guardian:

He is the man doing the job at the moment

The obvious reading of this is that Starmer won’t be the man of moments to come.

Speaking to why Labour have failed to resonate, Nowak said:

I think people got frustrated that sometimes it looked like the hard choices were falling on those who could least afford them. This year they just have to be clear … show how you are making a difference to people’s standard of living.

While not every Labour move has been terrible, there’ve been so many deplorable policies that they’ve taken on the mantle of the ‘nasty party’ in the eyes of the public. Going after pensioners through the Winter Fuel allowance cuts was the first big mistake, with attempts to impoverish disabled people being another wretched position.

The elephant in the room

As Nowak notes:

It’s not just the sharp end of the labour market who are feeling the pinch, it’s right across those low- and middle-income earners.

The Tories got away with austerity for so long because it took a while before the middle classes felt it. Now that the poison of austerity has contaminated the entire economy, cost-of-living is an unavoidable issue. Despite this, Labour have completely failed to address the issue causing it — growing inequality.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that if the wealthiest have more and more then everyone else will have less and less. Wealth taxes are one measure that we can use to start addressing this problem; employees getting a share of company profits would be another. Regardless of what policies we implement, however, we need to start implementing them now, and there’s no sign Starmer understands this.

Featured image via Heute