Prime Minister Keir Starmer has taken aim at Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and his perceived push to divide the United Kingdom.
Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool on Tuesday (30 September), Starmer questioned Farage’s motives and whether he really did plan to put the country first.
“When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage say anything positive about Britain’s future? He can’t.
“He doesn’t like Britain, doesn’t believe in Britain, wants you to doubt it as much as he does, and so he resorts to grievance. They all do.”
Speaking more broadly on Reform, Starmer said that right-leaning parties in the UK were determined to push division.
“Do they want to serve our country – all of it. Our beautiful, tolerant, diverse country, every region, nation, and city, or do they just want to stir the pot of division? Because that’s what works for their interests,” he said.
Starmer also took shots at the Conservative Party and the SNP, who he said didn’t really want to fix the country’s problems and renew Britain.
“Or – as we’ve seen time and again, whether it’s the SNP, the extremes of the left, or Reform and the Tories now. Do they actually want Britain to fail?”
Send Reform packing
Starmer’s comments come after Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that Labour will ‘send Farage packing’ at the next general election, calling the leader of Reform UK a ‘snake-oil salesman’.
“Be in no doubt. It’s not the reform [Farage] is offering. It’s a retreat,” Streeting said.
“He says we can’t afford in this century the National Health Service we could afford in the last. Well, if that’s the fight Farage wants, I say, bring it on.”
“If you earn less than £60,000 a year and came from abroad, Farage wants you gone – the doctors, the porters, the nurses, the people who care for us in our hour of need and kept this country going when everything else stopped – tearing families apart, our friends, our neighbours,” he said.
Streeting addressed people in this group directly, especially acknowledging their contribution to the NHS and healthcare in the UK. He said that while Farage was saying to those immigrants working in the health service they must ‘go home’, Labour believes they are home.
“I’ve got your back. We’ve got your back, and at the next election, we’ll send Farage packing,” Streeting said.
Leave a Reply