Starmer says he does not need lessons from Farage on working people

Sir Keir Starmer said he does not need “lessons” from Nigel Farage on what life is like for working people as he took aim at the Reform UK leader and dodged questions about the two-child benefit cap.

The Prime Minister launched a series of attacks on Mr Farage, saying that he wanted to “protect” working people from what his party would do after they set out policy plans earlier this week.

Sir Keir said Mr Farage’s plans to spend “billions upon billions upon billions, tens of billions of pounds, in an unfunded way” was an “exact repeat of what Liz Truss did”.

Speaking during a visit to a glass factory in the North West, the Prime Minister said the Clacton MP would not have protected jobs in industries subject to tariffs from the US.

“Can you trust him? Can you trust him with your future? Can you trust him with your jobs? Can you trust him with your mortgages, your pensions, your bills? And he gave the answer on Tuesday. A resounding no,” he said.

Mr Farage had pitched Reform UK as the “the party of working people” rather than Labour, and accused Sir Keir of having no connection to the working class.

Sir Keir rejected this, saying: “I know what it means to work 10 hours a day in a factory five days a week, and I know that because that is what my dad did every single working day of his life, and that’s what I grew up with.

“So I don’t need lessons from Nigel Farage about the issues that matter most to working people in this country.”

Sir Keir dodged questions about whether he would like to get rid of the two-child benefit cap, saying he was looking at “all options” to drive down child poverty.

It came after Mr Farage had confirmed his party’s support for scrapping the two-child benefit cap and fully reversing the winter fuel payment cuts.

Asked why he was focusing so much on Reform UK, the Prime Minister said the Conservative Party has “run out of road”.

He said the choice for voters was now between Labour and Reform UK as he sought to draw comparisons between Mr Farage’s economic proposals and the mini-budget from short-lived Tory prime minister Ms Truss that spooked the financial markets in 2022 and led to a spike in mortgage rates.

Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf said Sir Keir’s speech showed it was “panic stations at Labour”.

“Look, Keir Starmer is panicking because his awful Government is now trailing Reform by a staggering eight points in the latest YouGov poll,” he told Sky News.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Reform UK’s pledge to increase the income tax personal allowance to £20,000 a year could cost between £50 billion and £80 billion a year.

The IFS’s deputy director Helen Miller said the announcements on winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit cap were “dwarfed” by the change to income tax personal allowance.

Kevin Hollinrake, the shadow local government secretary, said the Prime Minister has “problems wherever he looks”.

He told Sky News: “The public’s lost interest in Labour. I mean, I don’t think they were ever popular at the despatch box – we were just unpopular, and we’ve got a big job to do on that particular score, but I believe we can do it.

“But also Reform, the ‘red wall’ as we call it, the working class voters, have completely lost faith in Keir Starmer and (Chancellor) Rachel Reeves and others, not least because of the disgraceful stripping away of the winter fuel allowance.”

Sir Keir is also facing danger from dissatisfied backbenchers, he said.

“So I can understand, he’s trying to basically aim his fire all around him. It’ll end up in a circular firing squad, I think, and it looks very bad for the Prime Minister right now.”

Published: 29/05/2025 by Radio NewsHubClick here to read this story in full at Radio News Hub