Don't panic' Labour can repair trust - and defeat Farage, says Straw

Keir Starmer and his ministers must not "panic" about Nigel Farage, the former home secretary Jack Straw advises.

- Jessica Elgot

Keir Starmer and his ministers must not "panic" about Nigel Farage, the former home secretary Jack Straw advises. He says the prime minister had impressed on the world stage and should show more of that side of himself at home.

In an interview with the Guardian, he praised the prime minister's decision to recognise a Palestinian state with an ultimatum to Israel - and defended the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, saying he would also have proscribed the group Palestine Action.

The political veteran said he believed Starmer and his cabinet were "head and shoulders" above opposition politicians and would reap the rewards of a gradual improvement in the economy and public services.

He said of the Reform UK poll lead: "We have been here before in terms of an insurgent party leading in the polls. So I think it is the famous phrase - don't panic."

The former foreign secretary said Labour faced not only a terrible economic inheritance, but fundamental damage to the fabric of democracy caused by the Tories, primarily Boris Johnson.

"Johnson polluted British politics and although he's left the stage, that pollution carries on, and has been very profound," he said. "People look at the first Blair period with kind of rose-tinted spectacles. It didn't always feel that it was easy at the time, but the inheritance was much easier."

Straw said there had at least been an appreciation in 1997 that his predecessors had been competent people. "These people [in the last Tory government] were not competent. They couldn't do the job. In the space of four years, I think there were five home secretaries," he said.

Straw, who was foreign secretary during the invasion of Iraq, which he later said had been a mistake, said he had spent time in the run-up to the general election with David Lammy and dismissed the idea Labour had not been prepared adequately to enter government.