Britain faces a “defining choice” between a patriotic Labour party promising national renewal or “division and decline” under the “snake oil merchant” Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer has said.
Speaking at the Labour party’s conference in Liverpool, the prime minister said he was engaged in a “fight of the soul of our country” with Farage’s Reform UK.
But he also told activists that for decades, establishment politicians had “placed too much faith in globalisation” and that Labour had “become a party that patronised working people”.
Starmer addressed the party grassroots on Tuesday after a bruising month dominated by questions over his political judgment and deepening unpopularity.
Seeking to unite his fractured base, he argued that voters had “reasonable” concerns about illegal migration but that there was “a moral line” that Farage and others had crossed.
He attacked “snake oil merchants” on the right and on the left who sought to convince the public there was a “quick fix” to Britain’s problems, citing calls for unfunded tax cuts, “a wealth tax that somehow solves every problem” and the Brexit campaign’s promises that leaving the EU would bring £350m more a week to the NHS.
Faced with the surging popularity of Reform UK, Starmer said that Labour was in “a fight for the soul of our country every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war”.
“We can all see that the country faces a choice, a defining choice, Britain stands at a fork in the road, we can choose decency, we can choose division, renewal or decline,” he said.
A person who argued that “people who have lived here for generations” should now be deported was “an enemy of national renewal”, Starmer said.
“If you incite racist violence and hatred, that is not expressing concern: it’s criminal. This party – this great party – is proud of our flags, yet if they are painted alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to ‘go home’, that’s not pride; that’s racism,” he told activists to loud applause.
He said Farage “doesn’t like Britain, doesn’t believe in Britain” and wanted to create “a competition of victims”, and sought to position Labour as the agent of change, saying: “We must never, ever find ourselves defending a status quo that manifestly failed working people.”
He said successive governments had “placed too much faith in globalisation” including with “lazy assumptions that immigration is all we need to give us workers … it doesn’t matter if industry leaves, it doesn’t matter if we don’t train our young people, it doesn’t matter if wealth creation is hoarded by just a few communities”.
But he added: “Let us spell it out: controlling migration is a reasonable goal, but if you throw bricks and smash up private property that’s not legitimate, that is thuggery.
“We will crack down on illegal working, we will remove people with no right to be here and we will secure Britain’s borders. But there is a line, a moral line – and it isn’t just Farage who crosses it, there are also people who should know better sowing fear and discord across our country.”
Farage is expected to take aim at Starmer for calling his immigration policy racist in a live broadcast on Tuesday afternoon, where he is expected to accuse the prime minister of putting Reform UK candidates and activists at risk with his remarks.
In an echo of Gordon Brown’s 2009 conference speech, Starmer listed his government’s achievements so far, including nationalising British Steel, scrapping zero-hours contracts and rebuilding schools.
He announced that he would scrap the New Labour target of having 50% of young people go to university and replace it with an aim of two-thirds doing either a degree or a “gold standard apprenticeship”.
He said Britain needed a “more muscular state” freed from unnecessary red tape, as well as investment outside London and the south-east, more money for public services and strengthened workers’ rights.
But speaking before the budget in late November, Starmer warned party members that being in government “requires decisions that are not cost-free or easy, decisions that are not always comfortable for our party”.
In the days leading up to conference, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, criticised Starmer’s leadership and economic policy and said Labour MPs had been urging him to mount a leadership challenge.
But during a live Guardian podcast recording on Monday, Burnham appeared to retreat from the threat of a leadership challenge, saying he thought Starmer was the right man for the job.
Starmer was introduced at conference by Margaret Aspinall, a campaigner for justice for victims of the Hillsborough disaster, who welcomed a long-awaited law that will force public officials to tell the truth during investigations into major disasters.
“I’ve met a prime minister who’s kept his promise,” she said. Details of the legislation, unveiled earlier this month, have been welcomed by campaigners who feared it would be watered down.
