Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain sought to reclaim the mantle of patriotism from his populist right-wing opponents on Tuesday, characterizing Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., as a snake oil merchant who dislikes his country and stokes the “politics of grievance” to gain an electoral edge.
In a speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool, England, Mr. Starmer tried to revive his own plummeting approval numbers in part by making his most forceful case against Mr. Farage, whose anti-immigration party has surged in popularity across the country. The prime minister repeatedly rebutted the assertion from Mr. Farage and his allies that Britain was “broken.”
“They want to turn this proud, self-reliant country into a competition of victims,” Mr. Starmer said. He urged several thousand attendees to wave national flags of Britain that had been handed out before the speech; in recent months, far-right organizers have used the flags as symbols of their movement. The crowd waved the flags and burst into applause, and Mr. Starmer declared, “Labour is the patriotic party.”
With Scottish, Welsh and municipal elections just over seven months away, Mr. Starmer said that the choice facing British voters between Labour and Reform was a “fork in the road” that would determine the fate of the country’s democracy.
“When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage say anything positive about Britain’s future?” asked Mr. Starmer. “He can’t. He doesn’t like Britain.” None of the “snake oil merchants” on the political right or left have “any interest in national renewal because decline is good for their business,” he added.
He even mentioned Britain’s departure from the European Union, a divisive topic he rarely discusses that is deeply associated with Mr. Farage, who campaigned for it for years. The prime minister criticized “the Brexit lies on the side of that bus,” a reference to a hotly contested Leave slogan claiming that 350 million pounds a week could be diverted to the N.H.S. if Britain quit the bloc.
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