Keir Starmer has urged Britons to keep faith amid difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions being made by the government, saying he realised many voters wanted quicker progress, but that he would not con people with “false hope” or easy answers.

Giving his first speech to the Labour conference as prime minister, Starmer repeatedly promised to create “a Britain that belongs to you”, an extension of his election mantra of a government of service.

“This has to be a partnership; we won’t achieve our missions alone,” he said.

He used his transformation of Labour, and the party’s comeback from a devastating election result in 2019, as evidence he could deliver as prime minister.

“People said we couldn’t change the party, but we did,” he said to rapturous cheers as he closed the speech. “People said we couldn’t win across Britain, but we have. People say we can’t deliver national renewal, but we can and we will.”

Directly addressing the decision to scrap winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners, Starmer said he accepted some people were “nervous about the difficult road ahead”.

“I get that,” he went on. “If this path was popular or easy, we could have walked it already.”

In a speech that contained few elements of new policy, Starmer said he realised that many people had voted Labour for “respite” and hope.

“So I know, after everything you have been through, how hard it is to hear a politician ask for more. But deep down, I think you also know that our country does need a long-term plan and that we can’t turn back,” he said.

Doing this, he said, would speed up “that light at the end of the tunnel” in the form of improvements to areas such as the NHS and crime.

Starmer continued: “I understand many of the decisions we must take will be unpopular. If they were popular, they’d be easy. But the cost of filling that black hole in our finances, that will be shared equally.”

He added: “I will not do it with easy answers, I will not do it with false hope. Not now, not ever.”

Watched by the cabinet and Labour grandees, including former ministers from the Blair and Brown governments, Starmer promised “the steady but uncompromising work of service”, adding: “Service doesn’t mean we will get everything right. It doesn’t mean everyone will agree.”

In terms of policy, there were few surprises, with much of his speech trailed in advance. Starmer confirmed that GB Energy, the publicly owned clean energy company, would be based in Aberdeen, and that the “Hillsborough law”, which introduces a legal duty of candour to all public bodies, will go before parliament before the next anniversary of the disaster, in April.

He also pledged measures to house all military veterans in housing need, as well as for young care leavers and victims of domestic abuse.

A common thread through other policy areas, including a reiteration of the pledge to reduce net migration, and condemnation of rioters, many from the far right, who created mass disorder in the summer, was Starmer’s insistence to not be bowed or knocked off course.

The speech was interrupted briefly by one delegate who shouted from the floor before being removed. “This guy’s obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference,” Starmer joked, to loud applause.

Reminiscing about previous conferences where he took on Labour’s left, Starmer castigated those who, he said, preferred to remain in “the comfort zone – the easier road to nowhere”. He said: “Never forget that this opportunity is only here because we changed the party.”

“Service doesn’t mean we’ll get everything right,” he said. “It doesn’t mean everyone will agree. It does mean we understand that every decision we take, we take together, and that it is our duty to the British people to face up to necessary decisions in their interests.

“And, conference, you know me by now, so you know, all those shouts and bellows, the bad faith advice from people who still hanker for the politics of noisy performance, the weak and cowardly fantasy of populism, it’s water off a duck’s back.