KEIR Starmer has said Reform UK’s policy, which would require those who have been granted indefinite leave to remain to reapply under much stricter rules, is “racist”.
The Prime Minister, who was on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, said that although he thinks the policy is immoral and needs to be called out, he doesn’t believe that Reform are trying to appeal to racists.
Last week, Reform UK pledged to overhaul Britain’s system for settled immigrants as part of their growing push to prove they are the country’s strictest party on immigration.
Nigel Farage’s party unveiled their plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, which confers settled status on people who have moved to the UK, if they were to come into power.
“I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral. It needs to be called out for what it is,” Starmer told Kuenssberg.
Asked if Reform are trying to appeal to racists, Starmer said: “No, I think there are plenty of people who either vote Reform or are thinking of voting Reform who are frustrated.
“They had 14 years of failure under the Conservatives, they want us to change things.
“They may have voted Labour a year ago, and they want the change to come more quickly. I actually do understand that.”
Earlier, he said: “It is one thing to say we’re going to remove illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here. I’m up for that.
“It is a completely different thing to say we are going to reach into people who are lawfully here and start removing them. They are our neighbours.
“They’re people who work in our economy. They are part of who we are. It will rip this country apart.”
Starmer's comments come after a survey by Norstat, published on Saturday evening by The Sunday Times, shows that Reform would climb to second place in Holyrood in the 2026 elections with Labour in third.
The Norstat survey found that SNP remains on course to win the Holyrood 2026 election, with 34% of voters planning to back them, with 20% backing Reform and just 17% favouring Labour
On the regional list, 29% of voters are planning to vote SNP, with Reform and Labour tied on 18%.
Starmer pleaded with Labour to give him space to lead the party in the “fight of our lives” against Farage’s Reform UK on Kuenssberg's programme.
“We have got the fight of our lives ahead of us, because we’ve got to take on Reform, we’ve got to beat them," he said.
“So now is not the time for introspection or navel-gazing. There is a fight that we are all in together, and every single member of our party and our movement, actually, everyone who cares about what this country is, whether they vote Labour or otherwise, it’s the fight of our lives for who we are as a country. We need to be in that fight united, not navel-gazing.”
Asked how much trouble he is in, Starmer said: “We’ve got a lot of hard work to do.”
The poll found that while all political leaders in Scotland had negative approval ratings, SNP leader and First Minister John Swinney has by far the highest, at minus three.
Farage is on minus 20 while Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is on minus 21. Starmer recorded a whopping minus 42.
The survey also showed that four in ten Scots believe the Prime Minister is doing a “very bad” job, which has declined again since the last Norstat poll in May, when his approval rating was at minus 39.
When Scottish voters were asked whether replacing Starmer would make them more or less likely to vote Labour in the Holyrood elections, 19% said it would make them more likely, but 18% said it would be less likely.
