Starmer brings the steel – and draws up battle lines with Reform UK

 

Analysis

Starmer brings the steel – and draws up battle lines with Reform UK

Pippa Crerar

Political editor

Prime minister answers his critics in conference speech but the real challenges still lie ahead

 

Tue 30 Sep 2025 20.46 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/30/starmer-brings-the-steel-and-draws-up-battle-lines-with-reform-uk

 

When Keir Starmer sat in the chair for his broadcast interview at the start of the Labour conference on Sunday, he already had a clear idea of what he wanted to pull off during the four-day political gathering in Liverpool.

 

With the historic Liver Building behind him, he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “At the end of it people can agree or disagree, but they can’t say they don’t know what we stand for, what this government is trying to achieve.”

 

While many will, fairly, say it is an indictment of the prime minister that, after more than a year in office, he still struggles to articulate his vision, his conference speech on Wednesday will have gone some way towards doing so.

 

A constant frustration of Starmer’s MPs has been that he does not like, as his allies put it, the “V” word. He is a details-focused pragmatist who takes decisions based on their merits, rather than whether they fit into any particular political story.

 

But what this speech lacked in policy detail, it made up for in narrative. At its heart was an era-defining choice between Labour and the populist right or, as he put it, “decency or division, renewal or decline”.

 

The prime minister painted a picture of a country under Labour that could be both proud of its values and in control of its future. After a summer in which the flags had become the focus of a culture war, he sought to reclaim them, with delegates waving the flags of all parts of the UK.

 

Showing a steeliness and determination that has been largely absent since the general election, he demonstrated to his party he was unafraid of taking the fight to Nigel Farage, after months of leaving a vacuum.

 

In creating a dividing line with Reform, which is soaring ahead of Labour in the polls, he effectively drew the battle lines for the next general election, and gave his party a common enemy to unite behind. That Farage was so angry about it, suggests the strategy is getting under his skin.

 

Starmer suggested the contest would be Reform UK versus everybody else. Senior Labour figures hope that come the next election, enough of those in the centre and left of British politics, might be tempted to back him to keep Farage out of Downing Street.

 

The prime minister’s internal critics have relentlessly urged him to be more aggressive in challenging Reform and, at the same time, offer the public some hope that while the country faces huge challenges, they are surmountable. Up until now, they have been left disappointed.

 

After a disastrous start to the parliamentary session, and Andy Burnham one of the few senior Labour figures openly criticising Starmer, it is unsurprising that this conference has been dominated by speculation over Starmer’s leadership.

 

His allies say that Starmer is at his best when under intense pressure. “It clarifies things for him,” says one. “It helps him focus on what he really needs to fight for.” Faced with a threat to his leadership, his party and the country, they say he is stepping up.

 

But while they can say “job done” for this conference, the real challenges still lie ahead. The budget – set against a dire economic backdrop and bringing likely tax rises – will be a pivotal moment. An even more perilous one for Starmer will be the May local elections.

 

If this conference has been but the first step in his plan to get a grip on party and power, then Starmer, despite all the scepticism, could still turn things around. But if it just splutters to a halt then, as one senior party figure put it: “We’re sleep-walking towards a Reform government”.

 

Starmer could be forgiven for looking back on his conference speech two years ago, which was interrupted by a heckler who showered him with glitter and to which he responded by removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves to get on with the job, with pangs of nostalgia.

 

Labour was soaring in the polls back then and his leadership elicited hope, rather than the despair with which it is now met. That anxiety over whether he can pull it off has not gone away, but his speech will give him – even if only briefly – some much needed breathing space.