Starmer pledges to create a ‘new Britain’ as he accuses SNP and Tories of being ‘joined at the hip’

Labour leader Keir Starmer has said his party can create a “new Britain” but only if it is honest about the scale of the challenge it faces.

In a speech to the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow, Starmer said he wanted a Britain that “Scotland isn’t just part of, but proud of”.

But he warned delegates the party’s “greatest hurdle might not be the Tories, but ourselves”.

In a 35-minute speech, Starmer praised former Labour prime ministers, including both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Referring to the war in Ukraine, he warned of “dark days” ahead, saying “we are in a new world”.

He said he hoped to create a new United Kingdom, which was “re-engaged in the world” and said Labour was a “party of security” and a “party of Nato”.

Referring to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, he said: “His fear is order and liberty, afraid of democracy, of openness, of progress, and a world which will move on without him. He is afraid of everything that we are most proud of. We know Putin’s playbook – he seeks division, so we must meet him with unity.”

Pitching himself as a defender of the Union, Starmer said both the SNP and the Tories wanted “to keep Scotland stuck on pause in the politics of 2014 forever”.

He said: “I want to lead Britain because I believe in it, in all its parts and all of its differences.

“In all of our home nations, in all of the good and decent people who share the same hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations, the same land and the same coasts. A common language and inheritance, and the same threats to our way of life.”

Starmer said he “refused to accept” that all that mattered in British politics is where people are on a second Scottish independence referendum or on Brexit.

He said: “Just as I refuse to accept that the British people no longer care about what happens in Europe. Or that we will tolerate child poverty rising again, here at home.”

He added: “It is because I believe in our United Kingdom, that unique partnership of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Because I believe in us, that I am angry that the Tories have allowed the UK to be a place that is laughed about abroad.”

The speech, which was well received by delegates, was the first Starmer had given in person to a Scottish Labour conference and followed that of Scottish leader Anas Sarwar, who made his keynote address on Friday.  

There was a big round of applause when Starmer mentioned the achievements in government of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is now leading the party’s constitutional commission.

Starmer said the commission would not just “acknowledge or accommodate devolution, but to give it proper respect and unleash the true power of the idea”.

He said: “Not the devolution of grievance, or one-upmanship. But the vision of devolution that Anas is talking about and that our mayors in England are also talking about - pushing power away from parliaments and towards people - and towards great cities like Glasgow, which is being let down so badly by the SNP.

He said: “This Tory government is so distracted, it has no plan for household finances and no economic planning at all. And I ask you, what do these Tories and the SNP have in common?

“Well, beyond being joined at the hip in wanting to turn every election into the same referendum again, and again, they have no industrial strategy to meet the challenge of our age. They don’t have the credible policies we need to create and sustain decent jobs.

 “Decades of power between them - neither the Tories nor the SNP has done enough to secure the jobs and industries of the future.

“The so-called party of British business is barely able to talk to business. Whilst the party of North Sea nationalism is now selling Scotland’s offshore wind to every foreign energy interest imaginable.”

But the Labour leader also warned his party of the challenge that lies ahead, saying trust in it had “declined”.

He said: “We are the party of working people, our founding and defining mission. But too many working people came to see us as far removed from their lives.

 “We put our priorities above theirs, our ideas as more important than their experiences. So yes, our duty to win does mean keeping our discipline.

“We can win and we can make change or we can pursue apparent political purity inside this party. But please make no mistake, we cannot do both. Running away from the mainstream is running away from voters.”