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Decades-old racism is returning to British politics, and “it makes people feel very scared” Keir Starmer has said, warning that divisive hard-right politics was “tearing our country apart”.
Speaking to the GP and TV personality Amir Khan, the prime minister accused Nigel Farage’s Reform UK of overseeing a return of the racist and divisive politics “that frankly I thought we had dealt with decades ago”.
In the interview, which aired on ITV’s Lorraine show on Tuesday, Starmer also gave his strongest signal that the two-child benefit cap would be lifted in the budget later this month.
Asked whether he would scrap the limit, which charities have said is the biggest driver of child poverty in the UK, Starmer said: “I can tell you in no uncertain terms I am determined to drive child poverty down.”
He listed measures ministers have already introduced including free school meals, breakfast clubs, and childcare but added: “We need to do more than that, and I can look you in the eye and tell you I am personally committed to driving down child poverty.”
Pressed on whether his remarks meant he would lift the two-child cap, Starmer said he “wouldn’t be telling you we are going to drive down child poverty if I wasn’t clear that we will be taking a number of measures in order to do so”.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gave a similarly clear signal on Monday when she told BBC Radio 5 Live that “in the end, a child should not be penalised because their parents don’t have very much money”.
Ministers are understood to be preparing to lift the limit entirely, having originally looked at ways to taper it either for very large families or richer ones. The Resolution Foundation has estimated this would cost about £3.5bn by 2029-30.
In the interview, Starmer said the political divide in the UK now was between Labour’s “patriotic national renewal” and “the toxic division of Reform” and others on the right of politics who were “tearing our country apart”.
“Some of the rhetoric we’re hearing – racist rhetoric, divisive rhetoric – that frankly I thought we had dealt with decades ago is returning to politics and it makes people feel very scared,” he said.
“We have to stand up to that racism, that division, and we have to proudly say that to be British is to have concern for others, is to be reasonable, is to be tolerant and compassionate, and we’re proud of that.”
The prime minister echoed language used by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who warned earlier this month that an “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s had become worryingly commonplace again and that NHS staff were bearing the brunt of it.
In an interview with the Guardian, the health secretary said incidents of verbal and physical abuse based on people’s skin colour now happened so often that it had become “socially acceptable to be racist”.
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“We’ve got to call time on racism in this country and we’ve got to put that ugly racist sentiment that’s found expression in our country back in its box and once again create a climate in this country where it is not socially acceptable to be racist,” Streeting said.
Starmer used his speech at the Labour party conference in September to draw political battle lines between himself and Farage, saying that voters faced a “defining choice”.
The prime minister said he was engaged in a “fight for the soul of our country”, and argued that while voters had “reasonable” concerns about illegal migration, there was “a moral line” that Farage and others had crossed.
Starmer vowed to “fight” anyone who argued that people who were not white could not be English or British and that families who had lived in the UK for generations should be deported, saying people promoting such views were “an enemy of national renewal”.
“If you incite racist violence and hatred, that is not expressing concern: it’s criminal. This party – this great party – is proud of our flags, yet if they are painted alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to ‘go home’, that’s not pride; that’s racism,” he told activists.
