Keir Starmer warned Britain faces a ‘defining’ choice between himself and ‘snake oil merchant’ Nigel Farage today as he desperately tries to stabilise his teetering leadership.
The PM, who was introduced by Hillsborough campaigner Margaret Aspinall, is using his keynote speech to party conference in Liverpool to talk up the threat posed by Reform.
Arguing that the UK ‘stands at a fork in the road’ and can move towards ‘decency or division’, he urged Labour to ‘fight’ against the ‘path of decline’.
The premier also gave a tough message that left-wingers must accept ‘uncomfortable’ policies in areas such as immigration to appeal to voters.
Sir Keir has endured a devastating month, plumbing record lows for popularity while fears mount about a massive new tax raid in the Budget.
His attempts to hammer Mr Farage have also threatened to backfire after Labour figures voiced alarm at his decision to brand Reform’s immigration policy ‘racist’.
In other developments at the conference today:
- Sir Keir welcomed Donald Trump’s peace blueprint for Gaza saying ‘all sides’ must now work to implement it, and stressing the UK now recognised a Palestinian state;
- Andy Burnham, whose leadership push seems to have collapsed humiliatingly, was spotted leaving the site minutes before Sir Keir was due to start speaking;
- Health Secretary Wes Streeting has told activists he wants Angela Rayner to return to the frontline just weeks after she quit over her tax affairs;
- Rachel Reeves has told businesses they will not bear the brunt of tax hikes looming at the Budget;
- Labour deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has warned the party cannot ‘out-Reform Reform’;
Keir Starmer is using his keynote speech to party conference in Liverpool to talk up the threat posed by Reform
The PM was introduced by Hillsborough campaigner Margaret Aspinall
Ministers have carefully avoided ruling out smashing Labour’s manifesto promises not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT as Rachel Reeves faces an estimated £30billion black hole in the finances.
However, Health Secretary Wes Streeting did move to quash suggestions that VAT could be added to private healthcare costs this morning.
Allies have been stressing there is no alternative to Sir Keir after Andy Burnham’s nascent leadership push humiliatingly collapsed, and Angela Rayner was forced to resign.
Sir Keir told the conference: ‘We can all see our country faces a choice, a defining choice.
‘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.’
Sir Keir compared the challenge before Labour now to Clement Attlee’s administration in 1945 as it rebuilt Britain from the ruins of the Second World War.
The PM said: ‘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.
‘Yet at the end of this hard road there will be a new country, a fairer country, a land of dignity and respect.
‘Everyone seen, everyone valued, wealth creation in every single community, working people in control of their public services, the mindless bureaucracy that chokes enterprise, removed – so we can build and keep on building.’
Sir Keir insisted Britain can ‘unite around a common good’.
‘That’s my ambition, the purpose of this government,’ he said.
‘End decline, reform our public services, grow our economy from the grassroots.’
Rebuking those trying to lurch Labour to the Left, Sir Keir said some of his policies might not be ‘comfortable’.
‘Controlling who comes here is an essential task of government and there’s nothing compassionate or progressive in a vile trade that loads people on to overcrowded boats, puts them in grave danger in the Channel and ultimately exploits human desperation,’ he said.
Keir Starmer arrived with wife Victoria to deliver his keynote speech to party conference in Liverpool
Fresh divisions have been emerging at the top of Labour over the PM’s claim that Mr Farage’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.’
Sir Keir will promise a technological revolution for the NHS, with a new ‘online hospital’ for patients in England aimed at cutting waiting lists and providing quicker treatment and advice.
The scheme, which will begin operating in 2027, will deliver up to 8.5 million extra NHS appointments in its first three years, Labour claimed.
Those who use the service will be able to access and track prescriptions, be referred for scans and tests, and receive clinical advice on managing their condition.
Patients who require a physical test or a procedure will be able to book them on the NHS app at a nearby hospital, surgical hub or community diagnostic centre.
Sir Keir will describe it as ‘a new chapter in the story of our NHS, harnessing the future, patients in control’.
