Prime Minister Keir Starmer has taken apart Reform UK during Labour’s local election launch, slamming the far-right party for ‘putting themselves before the country’.
The elections on 1 May are the party’s first major test at the ballot box since winning power in last July’s landslide victory.
At an event in Derbyshire, Starmer said: “The local elections are the chance to vote for change in your community, vote for change in your neighbourhood, vote for change in your high street, vote for a Labour council that will work hand in hand with a Labour government on our plan for change. Not for parties that continue to put themselves before the country.”
He added: “I’m not just talking about the Tories, I’m talking about Reform as well. They say they want to run the country, they can’t even run themselves. You can literally fit their MPs now in the back of a cab, but they still don’t know where they’re going.
“They talk the language of workers’ rights, they talk it alright, online, sometimes on the doorstep, but what do they do?
“They voted against banning fire and rehire, they voted against scrapping exploitative zero hour contracts, they voted against sick leave and maternity pay, that’s what they do.
“And what about the NHS? They want to charge people for using our NHS. They claim to be the party of patriotism, I’ll tell you this, there’s nothing patriotic about fawning over Putin.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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