Starmer to warn voters they must choose between ‘decency’ or ‘division’

Keir Starmer will use his annual Labour Party conference speech to focus his attacks on Reform, warning Britain faces a ‘fork in the road’.

The prime minister will say voters face a ‘defining choice’ between ‘decency’ and ‘division’ at Tuesday’s keynote address in Liverpool.

It comes after he sharpened his tone against Nigel Farage’s party, openly branding its new immigration policy ‘racist’.

He will say: ‘We can all see our country faces a choice, a defining choice. Britain stands at a fork in the road.

‘We can choose decency. Or we can choose division. Renewal or decline.’

‘A country, proud of its values, in control of its future, or one that succumbs, against the grain of our history, to the politics of grievance.’

Reform has pledged to ban migrants from getting ‘settled’ status in the UK and effectively force out large numbers of foreigners who are settled here legally.

Anyone of non-EU origin (except Hong Kong and Ukraine) who already has ‘indefinite leave to remain’ in the UK would lose it and have to meet much higher salary requirements to get a work visa.

‘I do think it is a racist policy,’ Starmer told the BBC in response. ‘I do think it’s immoral and it’s to be called out for what it is.’

Reform remains comfortably ahead in the polls, although voters appear to be broadly against their latest pledges.

YouGov polling this week found people are evenly split on the issue of whether to end granting indefinite leave to remain.

But they are nearly two to one against the idea of taking it away from those who already have it.

Mr Starmer will go onto say: ‘It is a test. A fight for the soul of our country, every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war, and we must all rise to this challenge.

‘And yet we need to be clear that our path, the path of renewal, it’s long, it’s difficult, it requires decisions that are not cost-free or easy. Decisions that will not always be comfortable for our party.’

His speech will attempt to strike a positive note, urging people to ‘come together’ to ‘unite around the common good’.

The PM will continue: ‘At the end of this hard road there will be a new country, a fairer country, a land of dignity and respect.

‘Everyone seen, everyone valued, wealth creation in every single community, working people in control of their public services, the mindless bureaucracy, that chokes enterprise, removed, so we can build and keep on building.’

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