Labour can pull this round, PM says of polling fortunes as conference starts

Sir Keir Starmer has said he believes Labour can “pull this round” as the party goes into its annual conference with the prospect of being overtaken by Reform UK at the next election.

The Prime Minister said his party, currently riven with division and facing polls which suggests Nigel Farage’s party is on course to win the next election, faces the “fight of our times and we’ve all got to be in it together”.

But he told the Sunday Times: “I think we can pull this round.”

In an interview with the newspaper published after he arrived in Liverpool for Labour’s party conference, the PM added: “It is the fight of our times and we’ve all got to be in it together. We don’t have time for introspection, we don’t have time for navel-gazing.

“You’ll always get a bit of that at a Labour Party conference, but that is not going to solve the problems that face this country.”

The fight is “bigger than the Labour Party” because of the “sense of the division that Reform would bring to our country and the shattering of what we are as a patriotic country”, he also said.

The UK faces a “fork in the road” at the next election, between Labour and Reform, Sir Keir suggested – while the Tories are “dead”, he claimed.

Earlier, the PM claimed Mr Farage’s party wants to “tear our country apart”, pointing to Reform’s plans to remove indefinite leave to remain for legal migrants as “one of the most shocking things” he had heard them come out with.

As he arrived in Liverpool for the conference, Sir Keir said it would be an opportunity to show Labour’s alternative to the “toxic divide and decline” offered by Reform.

The latest polling has placed Mr Farage as the most likely politician to be the next prime minister, with Reform currently on track to win the most parliamentary seats if an election were held, according to both YouGov and More in Common.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves stepped up Labour’s attack on Mr Farage, suggesting he would be a risk to national security if handed the keys to No 10.

She told a reception in Liverpool: “Who is the party of national security? The Labour Party which faces down and stands up to Vladimir Putin?

“Or Nigel Farage of the Reform party who is an apologist for that dictator?”

Meanwhile, in a message aimed at rallying a divided Labour against Reform, Sir Keir told Saturday’s Guardian: “History will not forgive us if we do not use every ounce of our energy to fight Reform. There is an enemy. There is a project which is detrimental to our country.

“It actually goes against the grain of our history. It’s right there in plain sight in front of us. We have to win this battle.”

Labour had to “unite and fight”, he said amid speculation that Great Manchester mayor Andy Burnham could mount a leadership challenge.