Keir
Starmer to launch progressive fightback against ‘decline and division’ fuelled
by far right
Prime
minister expected to warn UK is ‘at a crossroads’ as he sets out plan to
counter Nigel Farage and Reform
Jessica
Elgot and Pippa Crerar
Tue 23
Sep 2025 05.00 BST
Keir
Starmer will make a major intervention this week, pledging a progressive
fightback and promising the UK will reject the division and hate fuelled by the
far right.
The move
comes ahead of Labour’s conference amid increasing pressure on the prime
minister from within his own party, where even senior loyalists have voiced
fears that he has not mounted a passionate enough attack on Reform UK and
rising racism in Britain.
In a
speech later this week, Starmer is expected to say the UK is “at a crossroads”
and that the government will lead the fight against “decline and division”.
The
address, due to take place alongside other progressive world leaders, is
intended to calm concerns among MPs and party members that Labour’s rebuttal of
Nigel Farage so far has been based on workability of proposals rather than a
moral objection.
Starmer
is also said to focused on building an international coalition of centre-left
leaders who can find ways to tackle the rise of right-wing populism, as well as
forming a united front on issues such as Ukraine and Gaza.
“We have
to have an answer to those questions. We need to be able to step up,” a Downing
Street source said, adding that this included a response to rising concerns
about immigration. They said it would be a “fatal flaw” for social democrats to
ignore those concerns.
“If the
social democratic response to these big questions doesn’t provide the answers
they need, then people will look elsewhere, as obviously they already are,” the
source said.
Insiders
said the speech this week would set the tone for Labour’s conference and build
on a series of interventions that signal a shift in strategy towards Farage.
“There is a recognition, I think, that we need to go further on this,” one ally
of the prime minister said.
No 10 had
previously seemed unwilling to directly criticise a number of controversial
Reform proposals over the summer, including plans for the mass detention and
deportation of migrants, scrapping the Human Rights Act and withdrawing from
the European convention on human rights.
On
Monday, Farage announced his party would scrap indefinite leave to remain for
migrants and replace it with a rolling visa system with a high salary threshold
and limits on families.
Starmer’s
spokesperson said the plan illustrated there was “a choice between national
renewal, which is what this government is focused on delivering, and the path
of division and decline which Reform wants to put the country on”.
But other
Labour MPs expressed direct anger at the potential for the policy to split up
tens of thousands of families. Sarah Owen, the chair of the women and
equalities select committee, called it “morally abhorrent and economic
madness”.
“The
public believe in fairness and mutual respect, not this cruel Trumpian policy
that would leave us all poorer. We are not America – we must resist this
dangerous turn in British politics,” she said.
MP
Charlotte Nichols called the plans “obscene” and said Reform have “no regard
for what this means for the people themselves, their families and communities
which will be torn apart”.
Senior
sources said Starmer had begun to spend significantly more time taking
soundings from MPs after a fortnight of turmoil, including losing the deputy
leader, Angela Rayner, the US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, as well as a senior
aide, to a series of scandals that cast doubt on his leadership.
As well
as spending time last week in the voting lobbies and tea rooms with MPs,
Starmer hosted a delegation for breakfast in No 10 on Monday morning.
The
speech this week will be the first time Starmer will publicly take on the
arguments of Farage since Reform ramped up its policy announcements and
visibility over the summer, amid protests outside asylum hotels.
But the
prime minister is understood to believe it is unfair to suggest the government
has not loudly championed its own progressive policies, such as increased
investment in green energy, workers rights and hikes to the minimum wage, as
well as protecting most working families from tax rises in the last budget.
Sources
said Starmer’s speech would build on an argument he made in an opinion piece
for the Sun newspaper, where he called it a “struggle for the heart and soul of
our nation”.
He said
that though people’s frustrations with the economy and migration were real, “a
small minority see instead an opportunity to whip up hatred … to follow an old
and dangerous playbook that sets people against one another”.
In the
piece, Starmer said there had been “loutish behaviour on the streets. And
people made to feel like they are not welcome or safe here because of their
heritage, religion or colour of their skin.
“We’ve
seen a nine-year-old black girl shot at in a racist attack. Chinese takeaways
defaced. That sends a shiver down the spine of every right-minded Brit. This is
not who we are.”
MPs
expressed anger and dismay at the slowness of No 10’s response to the “unite
the kingdom” nationalist march a fortnight ago, fronted by the far-right
activist Tommy Robinson and addressed by Elon Musk. It prompted Starmer to
issue a strongly worded statement to the Guardian saying the UK “would never
surrender” its flag to far-right agitators.
The prime
minister also hit out at Farage at last week’s cabinet, saying ministers had to
be “very clear about what we’re up against … We’re up against those that feed
off the politics of grievance, those that do not want problems to be fixed,
because if the problems are fixed, their reason to exist, their politics,
ceases to have any role in our society.”
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