Sir Keir Starmer will today warn the country it faces a ‘defining choice’ between ‘decency and division’, as splits emerged at the top of his party over whether Reform is ‘racist’.
In his keynote speech to Labour’s conference today, the rattled Prime Minister will double down on his attacks of Nigel Farage.
Sir Keir will liken the ‘fight for the soul’ of Britain to rebuilding the country after the war, and will hint at painful tax rises to come – saying the path of renewal requires decisions that are not ‘cost-free or easy’.
Ahead of his speech, fresh divisions emerged at the top of Labour over the PM’s claim that Reform’s immigration plans are ‘racist’.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said he would not use the ‘really loaded word’ about Reform, adding: ‘I don’t call the followers of Reform racist, I don’t call Nigel Farage racist.’
But Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, asked whether she thought Mr Farage was racist, said: ‘It’s hard to escape the conclusion that because many of the things that he does and says, I think, drift into racism – it’s hard to escape that conclusion.’
At the weekend, Sir Keir ramped up his rhetoric against Mr Farage’s plan to tear up residency rules, saying it ‘needs to be called out for what it is’.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves suggested she agreed with the assessment, telling LBC: ‘I think it is a racist policy. People support the Reform party for all sorts of reasons, but this policy is a racist policy.’
Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Lady Victoria rehearsing his conference speech before the address on Tuesday
She also used her conference speech to warn that ‘the single greatest threat to our way of life and to the living standards of working people is the agenda of Nigel Farage and the Reform Party’.
And Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy doubled down on the PM’s attack against Reform’s policies.
Mr Lammy said of Mr Farage: ‘We must call his scheme to round up and deport our French, Indian or Caribbean neighbours who already have indefinite leave to remain what it is. It is racist.’
He dubbed the Reform leader’s approach ‘pound shop patriotism’.
But ‘Blue Labour’ peer Lord Glasman branded the slur ‘pathetic’ and ‘stupid’, a source close to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: ‘She does not think that Farage is racist.
‘He’s a cynic and he’s happy to appeal to people who are racist. She thinks it’s a deeply damaging, unpleasant policy.’
And writing in today’s Mail, Reform UK’s head of policy accused Sir Keir of prefacing his conference by ‘smearing the third of the country as racist, in no small part because he is circling the drain’.
‘His collapse in popularity since winning the general election last year has been biblical. He is now the most unpopular PM on record. He is lashing out because a Survation poll this week showed the majority of Labour members want him replaced. So do the rest of the country.’
After a challenging month, Sir Keir will use his make or break speech to Labour’s annual conference today to insist that he has the answers to see off the threat of Reform.
‘We can all see our country faces a choice, a defining choice,’ he is set to tell the party faithful.
‘Britain stands at a fork in the road. We can choose decency. Or we can choose division. Renewal or decline.
‘A country – proud of its values, in control of its future or one that succumbs, against the grain of our history, to the politics of grievance.
‘It is a test. A fight for the soul of our country, every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war, and we must all rise to this challenge.
‘And yet we need to be clear that our path, the path of renewal, it’s long, it’s difficult, it requires decisions that are not cost-free or easy. Decisions – that will not always be comfortable for our party.’
He will say that at the ‘end of this hard road there will be a new country, a fairer country, a land of dignity and respect’ with ‘wealth creation in every single community’.
