Labour focuses on threat posed by Farage as Starmer prepares for conference

The Prime Minister is under pressure with Labour trailing behind Reform in opinion polls and some within the party uneasy about Labour’s direction under his leadership.

Speaking to a group of students at the Liverpool Echo’s offices ahead of the conference, Sir Keir described Reform’s plans to remove indefinite leave to remain for legal migrants as “one of the most shocking things” the opposition party had come out with.

He said: “These are people who’ve been in our country a long time, contributing to our society, maybe working in – I don’t know – hospitals, schools, running businesses, our neighbours, and Reform says it wants to deport them in certain circumstances.

“I think it is a real sign of just how divisive they are and that their politics and their policies will tear this country apart."

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Sir Keir continued: “It is what it is to be British that we are able to be reasonable, pragmatic, tolerant, live and let live. To tear away at that will destroy our country. I feel very, very strongly about this.

“I’m sorry that you’re having to grow up in a world where this politics has found a voice and almost a licence as well.”

The latest polling has placed Nigel 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 YouGov.

Later, arriving at the conference centre in Liverpool with his wife Lady Victoria, Sir Keir said the gathering, which officially starts on Sunday, was a “really big opportunity to make our case to the country, make it absolutely clear that patriotic national renewal is the way forward, not the toxic divide and decline that we get with Reform”.

In a message aimed at rallying a divided Labour against Reform, Sir Keir told the 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.”

Ahead of the Labour conference, backbench MPs and unions renewed calls to end the two-child benefit cap.

Several MPs from Liverpool, the host city of the conference, were among those who wrote to the Prime Minister ahead of the gathering insisting the cap “is one of the most significant drivers of child poverty in Britain today”.

Debate over the future of the cap is among a number of areas of benefits policy where ministers could be challenged by Labour members in Liverpool.