Starmer targets Reform as Labour kicks off local election campaign
The Prime Minister was joined by his deputy Angela Rayner and Labour chairwoman Ellie Reeves.
Sir Keir Starmer said there was “nothing patriotic” about Reform UK’s attitude towards Vladimir Putin as he launched Labour’s local election campaign with a promise to “bring change to Britain”.
The Prime Minister accused the party of “fawning over” the Russian president and mocked the size of its parliamentary ranks, saying its four MPs could “fit into the back of a cab”.
The local polls – and a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby – will be the first major ballot box test for the Prime Minister since entering office, and will give a sense of whether opinion poll momentum for Reform translates into real votes.
Elections will be held for 23 councils and six mayoralties in England.
In a sign of how focused Labour is on the threat from the right-wing party, the Prime Minister said it “says it wants to run the country” but “can’t even run itself” – a reference to the fallout between MP Rupert Lowe and leader Nigel Farage.
During a speech in Chesterfield on Thursday, he said: “They talk the language of workers’ rights. They talk it alright online, sometimes on the doorstep.
“But what did they do? They voted against banning fire and rehire, they voted against scrapping exploitative zero hour contracts, they voted against sick leave and maternity pay…
“And what about the NHS? They want to charge people for using our NHS.”
Sir Keir added: “There’s nothing patriotic about fawning over Putin.”
The Prime Minister was joined by his deputy Angela Rayner and Labour chairwoman Ellie Reeves as he urged voters to help deliver “the renewal the country needs” by backing its candidates at the ballot box on May 1.
Labour is focusing its opening pitch to voters on healthcare, pointing to “swift action” taken by the Government to end planned doctors’ strikes by offering an improved pay rise after entering office.
The party says the negotiation of a deal early on has helped spare disruption to hundreds of thousands of appointments, basing that claim on NHS data suggesting 507,000 cancellations occurred between July 2023 and last March during periods of industrial action under the last government.
But Sir Keir’s speech was almost entirely overshadowed by Donald Trump’s announcement of global tariffs that sent stock markets tumbling across the globe.
The Prime Minister said the world was “entering a new era” in trade and acknowledged there would be an economic hit to the UK from the 10% import tax slapped on British goods entering the US.
But he insisted imposing immediate retaliatory levies, as the European Union has promised, would be the wrong approach as he seeks to secure a deal with Washington to mitigate the damage to Britain.
Responding to Sir Keir’s speech, the Reform leader accused the Prime Minister of having “resorted, already at the launch, to outright Labour lies”.
Mr Farage, who has said Britain should re-examine how it funds the NHS, said: “He says we want to charge people to use the NHS, no we don’t, we want a better, cheaper funding model.
“He accuses us of fawning over Putin, no, we think what Putin has done in Ukraine is absolutely wrong but Prime Minister, are you really going to commit a large chunk of the British Army to being in Ukraine for five, 10 or 20 or 30 years?
“Because on that we do take issue and we are genuinely worried.”
Sir Keir has committed to sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine to help monitor a possible ceasefire, but has not said how many would be deployed nor how long they would stay.
