PRIME MINISTER Keir Starmer has told ministers to draw clear dividing lines with Reform UK as Labour looks ahead to 2026, amid falling poll ratings after its 2024 election victory.
At a meeting of his political cabinet, which included deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell and took place without civil servants, Starmer said voters faced a choice between Labour “renewing the country” and Reform, which he accused of feeding on “grievance, decline and division”, the BBC reported.
Reform has been leading opinion polls and is aiming for gains in May’s council elections in England and parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales. Starmer told ministers the government should be “relentless” in focusing on the cost of living and delivering “change people can feel”.
He said: “They want a weaker state, they want to inject bile into our communities, they want to appease [Russian President Vladimir Putin]. This is the fight of our political lives and one that we must relish.”
A Reform UK spokesman said the prime minister was showing an “obsession” with the party and accused Labour of failing to control the cost of living, adding: “They simply cannot be trusted.”
Starmer also told ministers: “Governments do not lose because polls go down. They lose when they lose belief or nerve. We will do neither.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Labour had “no plan, no agenda” and described Starmer as a “weak prime minister”.
Starmer reiterated that voters would judge the government on improvements to public services and the NHS, and said policies such as minimum wage increases, Bank of England interest rate cuts and help with energy bills were already having an effect.
