Labour turns fire on 'racist' policies of Farage's Reform

Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy launch blistering attacks on surging far-right party in sign they are seen as real threat

- By DAVID MADDOX, POLITICAL EDITOR

Labour turned its fire on Reform on the first day of its annual conference – branding the party’s policies “racist” and warning Nigel Farage as prime minister would “create a cultural wasteland” in Britain.

Sir Keir Starmer accused Mr Farage of peddling an “immoral” policy after the Reform UK leader pledged to scrap settled status for all non-EU migrants, a move which would threaten with deportation those who have been granted indefinite leave to remain. In an explosive interview with the BBC as the Labour event got underway in Liverpool, the prime minister - whose party trails Reform in the polls - said the policy to abolish indefinite leave to remain “needs to be called out for what it is”, adding: “I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral.”

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy doubled down on Sir Keir’s remarks, warning Reform is “trying to redefine what it means to be British in a narrow way” and would destroy Britain’s cultural landscape. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, she claimed Mr Farage’s assaults on so-called “woke” culture, plans to use an Elon Musk-style Doge to slash spending, and narrow, nationalistic view of what it means to be British would threaten arts and culture up and down the country.

Agreeing with Sir Keir’s description of the policy, she raised the example of her father, the Indian academic Dipak Nandy, who came to the UK as an immigrant and helped a Labour government draft the Race Relations Act. The strongly worded interventions came as Labour started a four-day campaign to respond to the threat of a Reform government with a series of announcements, designed to show the party is getting tough on major issues such as immigration, and to show that an embattled Sir Keir still has a plan.