Keir Starmer has labelled Nigel Farage as “dangerous” for “fawning over Putin” in a damning speech to Labour Party members.
The prime minister addressed Reform UK’s “dangerous right-wing politics” while speaking at the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow yesterday, insisting Nigel Farage’s party is “not the answer for Britain”.
He said Labour needs to be “ready to point out that beneath their bluster, the alternative they offer is alien to working people,” adding Reform UK voted against the Employment Rights Bill, which will ban zero hour contracts, fire and rehire practise, and better maternity leave, “on their rare visits to Parliament”.
“They claim to be the party of patriotism but they’re fawning over Putin,” he added.
Sir Keir warned: “If we don’t show a path to the future, others will fill that void. In fact, they already are.
“A dangerous right-wing politics – even here in Scotland – that will say they are the ones who can tilt politics towards the interests of working people.
“Even as their proposals do precisely the opposite. A politics which feeds off the failure of the free market. A failure of public services to reform.”
“Only Labour can make the difference for working people, only Labour will put more money in your pocket, only Labour will fix our broken economy, only Labour will secure our borders, only Labour can save our NHS, put police back on your streets, give our children the opportunities they deserve,” he concluded.
His intervention comes after Nigel Farage told Americans in Maryland at the conservative Cpac conference that “everyone is miserable” in Britain, claiming: “In my country, you can’t say anything or you might get put in prison.”
Recent YouGov polling has put Reform ahead of both Labour and Conservatives at 27 per cent.