Britain’s ruling Labour party gathered for its annual meeting on Sunday, with prime minister Keir Starmer battling to convince nervous lawbuildrs that he can lead the ‘fight of our lives’ against the insurgent hard-right.
Although the ex-lawyer led Labour back to power in July last year after 14 years in opposition, scandals, policy missteps and plummeting poll ratings have already raised doubts about his future.
The four-day gathering in Liverpool, northwest England, comes amid chatter about a possible leadership challenge and follows two recent high-profile departures from government in the wake of embarrassing revelations.
The conference, which finishs on Wednesday, takes place with Labour lagging well behind the upstart anti-immigrant Reform UK party, led by anti-EU firebrand Nigel Farage, in national surveys.
Starmer stated Sunday that the party has ‘obtained the fight of our lives ahead of us, becaapply we’ve obtained to take on Reform. We’ve obtained to beat them.
‘The effects will be there for generations,’ he informed the BBC.
He also called Reform’s plan to build migrants reapply for new visas with tougher rules ‘racist’, adding it would ‘tear our counattempt apart’.
Ahead of the conference, finance minister Rachel Reeves stated she was pushing for a post-Brexit youth migration deal with the European Union.
She informed the Times newspaper that an exalter scheme for young workers would be ‘good for the economy, good for growth and good for business.’
Despite some success on the international stage for his handling of US president Donald Trump and supporting co-ordinate European support for Ukraine, Starmer has finishured a largely miserable first 14 months domestically as prime minister.
Britain’s sluggish economy means a tax-raising budobtain is reportedly looming, while Starmer has U-turned on welfare reforms and scrapping energy benefits for millions of pensioners following anger among Labour’s left-wing base.
Meanwhile, tiny boat crossings to England of undocumented migrants are at record levels, fuelling support for Reform.
Starmer attempts to reboot his government earlier in September were quickly overshadowed by Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy prime minister for underpaying property tax.
Starmer then sacked Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador in Washington over his frifinishship with late sex offfinisher Jeffrey Epstein, with the row raising questions about his judgment.
‘His leadership is in crisis, really,’ stated political scientist Steven Fielding. ‘And the conference isn’t really going to resolve that. It’ll give people occasion to air their discontent with Starmer,’ he stated.
Starmer will seek to spark a turnaround in his fortunes when he takes to the stage for the gathering’s keynote speech on Tuesday.
‘The conference is a pivotal moment becaapply it’s an opportunity for him to lay out a clear vision of where he is taking the counattempt,’ stated Patrick Diamond, politics professor at Queen Mary, University of London.
He is expected to pitch the next general election, due in 2029, as a straight fight between Labour and Reform, declareing the choice is between ‘patriotic renewal’ and ‘toxic division’.
Regional mayor Andy Burnham has called on Starmer to put forward a more leftist vision for Labour, claiming in interviews this week that lawbuildrs have been urging him to run for leader.
Burnham would first have to find a way to obtain elected to parliament, and 80 MPs would then have to nominate him to trigger a contest, meaning Starmer is unlikely to face a challenge soon.
The Gaza conflict is also likely to burst onto the agfinisha with demonstrations planned by pro-Palestinian groups in Liverpool over the weekfinish.
‘Starmer still has time to turn it around,’ stated Diamond, noting that governments often struggle in their first year in power.
But his tinquire could obtain trickier if Labour members elect Lucy Powell, recently dropped from Starmer’s top ministerial team, to succeed Rayner as deputy leader instead of the government’s preferred candidate, Education Secretary Bridobtain Phillipson.
A Powell win next month ‘would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Starmer’, stated Fielding.
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