LIVERPOOL, England: Prime Minister Keir Starmer will say Tuesday that Britain faces a stark choice between decency and division, in an attempt to reset his government and stem the rising popularity of the hard-right party Reform UK.<\/p>\n
Starmer will tell his center-left Labour Party that Britain faces \u201ca fight for the soul of our country\u201d as he tries to overcome dire approval ratings, a sluggish economy and the challenge posed by divisive Reform leader Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n
\u201cBritain stands at a fork in the road. We can choose decency or we can choose division. Renewal or decline,\u201d Starmer will say, according to his office.<\/p>\n
Since Labour won a landslide election victory in July 2024, its popularity has plummeted. The party promised economic growth, but has struggled to deliver it. Inflation remains stubbornly high and the economic outlook subdued, frustrating efforts to repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living.<\/p>\n
Treasury chief Rachel Reeves said Monday that wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and US President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs have caused \u201charsh global headwinds,\u201d and hard economic choices loom when she sets out her budget in November.<\/p>\n
Against that gloomy backdrop, Labour\u2019s annual conference in Liverpool \u2013 motto: \u201cRenew Britain\u201d \u2013 has been dominated by conversations about how to fight Reform. Farage\u2019s party has topped opinion polls for months, ahead of both Labour and the main opposition Conservatives, despite holding just five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n
Farage\u2019s anti-establishment, anti-immigration message, with its echoes of Trump\u2019s MAGA movement, has homed in on the issue of thousands of migrants in small boats arriving in Britain across the English Channel. More than 30,000 people have made the dangerous crossing from France so far this year despite efforts by authorities in Britain, France and other countries to crack down on people-smuggling gangs.<\/p>\n
Farage has vowed to deport everyone arriving by small boat and go even farther, stripping the right to remain in the UK from many legal residents.<\/p>\n
Starmer said on the weekend that such a policy would be \u201cracist\u201d and \u201cimmoral,\u201d and he has accused Farage of nurturing a \u201cpolitics of grievance\u201d that turns people against one another. He has expressed alarm that a march organized by anti-immigration campaigner and convicted fraudster Tommy Robinson attracted more than 100,000 people in London this month.<\/p>\n
Starmer will warn in his speech that the path to renewal is \u201clong, it\u2019s difficult, it requires decisions that are not cost-free or easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a test,\u201d he plans to say. \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government doesn\u2019t have to call an election until 2029, but already some Labour members are talking about replacing Starmer \u2014 especially if the party takes a hammering in local and regional elections in May.<\/p>\n
A potential rival is Andy Burnham, the popular Labour mayor of Manchester, who has warned that the party is in \u201cperil\u201d and needs to change direction.<\/p>\n
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a Starmer ally, said the party didn\u2019t need a new leader, but had to \u201cbe better at telling the story of what we are trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope in Keir\u2019s speech \u2026 he will tell a story about the country we are and the country we want to see,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s problems are not unique. Established parties around the globe are being challenged by anti-establishment populists. John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said voters have become \u201cdeeply pessimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curtice said Starmer, who has won praise for his sober handling of the Ukraine war and Trump\u2019s White House, is \u201cvery good with bad news\u201d but \u201cnot very good at optimism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are going turn the mood of the country around, you need to do more than change the reality. You also have to influence perception,\u201d Curtice said. \u201cAnd clearly the question being raised about the current Labour leadership is: Does it have the ability to change the mood?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LIVERPOOL, England: Prime Minister Keir Starmer will say Tuesday that Britain faces a stark choice between decency and division, in an attempt to reset his government and stem the rising popularity of the hard-right party Reform UK. Starmer will tell his center-left Labour Party that Britain faces \u201ca fight for the soul of our country\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":87523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87525,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87513\/revisions\/87525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}