Britain's Prime Minister lamented that the country has relied too heavily on importing labour rather than training up the UK's workforce, during his keynote speech at the Labour conference, with which he attempted to shore up his embattled leadership.
Keir Starmer announced a new policy of ditching university targets for young people and bringing more into trade apprenticeships as he painted a picture of a country standing up for itself, in a wide-ranging speech at his party’s annual conference in Liverpool.
He also launched an attack on racism and on the hard-right Reform UK party – along with its leader Nigel Farage – for their apparent lack of love for Britain and for misleading people with the politics of grievance.
He gave his full backing too to the US President Donald Trump’s initiative to resolve the Gaza conflict alongside fighting racism and solving Britain’s rampant migration.
Global reliance
In a well-executed speech that included moments of levity, Mr Starmer raised the argument made by people wanting to return to the politics of before the global financial crisis of 2008 and Brexit in 2016.
But he called that a time of complacency, when “we placed too much faith in globalisation” when “it did not appear to matter if industry left Britain or young people weren’t trained in trades”.
“Look at our world now, because in our age of insecurity, we can see now that it does matter,” he said. People who lived through austerity, Brexit and Covid had played by the rules, yet politicians “ducked the challenge of renewal”, but now the priority was to “renew every town and city on these islands”.
Apprentices galore
To bring more people into trades he made the new announcement of ditching the target of getting 50 per cent of youths into university.
“We will scrap that target and replace it with a new ambition that two thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship.”
While some of the decisions Labour will make “will not always be comfortable for our party”, he pledged that “at the end of this hard road there will be a new country, a fairer country”.
Gaza unity
Mr Starmer also called on “all sides to come together” in the Israel-Gaza conflict to make US President Donald Trump’s peace initiative work. To rapturous applause and a standing ovation, he declared that it was now time to recommence the plan for a viable Palestinian nation.
“All sides must now come together to bring this initiative into reality, because we must restart the hope of a two-state solution, a safe and secure Israel alongside the long-promised Palestinian state, a state that this country now recognises.”
The Prime Minister welcomed Washington’s initiative to bring peace to the Middle East. “I strongly support efforts to end the fighting, release every hostage, urgently scale up aid into Gaza,” he said.
Farage ravaged
With Reform racing ahead in the polls, opening up the possibility that they could form the next government, Mr Starmer launched a full-blooded attack on its leader, Nigel Farage, asking “do they love our country?”
“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 worked in their interests?” he asked.
Then, referring to the recent cyber attacks on global UK brands that could cost them £2.5 billion in lost revenue and result in more disenchanted workers, he questioned if Reform “actually want Britain to fail?”
Migrant racism
Central to Reform’s popularity is its constant attacks on Britain’s seemingly out-of-control immigration – in the last year alone 50,000 people have arrived on small boats after crossing the English Channel.
While Britain would always be a “decent, compassionate country” for genuine refugees, he vowed to crack down on “vile” people smugglers and to secure the country's borders. Controlling migration was “a reasonable goal” but he said hard-right thugs throwing bricks at hotels housing asylum seekers “is not expressing concern, it’s criminal, it’s racism”.
Leadership woes
The rise of the hard-right Reform UK, alongside several government policy reversals and a serious drop in the polls, have led to open talk about Mr Starmer’s potential replacement. There is tangible unease at the Labour conference about his ability to lead the country, with insiders predicting a serious challenge could come as early as next year.
The problem is that replacing a prime minister – a politically nuclear option – by no means guarantees election success. As the Conservatives recently demonstrated, it can lead to more chaos and even near-extinction.
“Clearly, people are now openly talking about his removal,” a senior Labour official told The National. “But I would say, as someone who doesn't like Starmer, you look at the potential field of replacements and there's not a single candidate who would actually make things better.”
That feeling among the party’s influencers put even greater pressure on Mr Starmer to deliver a speech to win back the doubters and reverse dire polling. A former Labour adviser to a previous prime minister said a “conversation” on a leadership challenge was needed, as the “whole party is somewhere between upset and furious”. They added: “I’m afraid that we need someone else.”
Joe Dromey, secretary general of the closely Labour-aligned Fabian Society, argued that “we need to avoid breathless talk about this conference being make or break for Keir Starmer and focus [on the] hard graft of delivery and setting out the opposition to Farage and Reform, exposing their lies and how far their views are from the majority of the British public.”
The question now is whether Mr Starmer will be taking the podium again next year as Labour leader.
