Keir Starmer pledges to ‘renew Scotland’ but warns of more ‘tough decisions’

Keir Starmer has promised to “renew Scotland and renew Britain” as he faces down internal and external dissatisfaction in his government’s performance.

Addressing the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, the prime minister said his government was making a “Britain built for all” – but warned tough decisions would “keep on coming”.

He told delegates that the journey to “national renewal” would require “patience as well as courage”, but his “defining mission” was to grow the economy and improve living standards across the UK.

And Starmer took aim at those who seek to “stir the pot of division” for their own gain, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who he said “doesn’t like Britain [and] doesn’t believe in Britain”.

The speech comes at a pivotal moment for the prime minister, whose party is trailing in the polls and whose own approval rating has fallen to the lowest of any UK premier.

Labour MPs have publicly and privately been suggesting Starmer has until May to turn things around before a possible leadership challenge.

Recent polling ahead of the 2026 Scottish Parliament election has put Scottish Labour well behind the SNP, and even coming neck-and-neck for second place with Reform.

Starmer said his party would approach that election, as well as those in Wales and throughout local government in England, “as patriots of our great nations”.

But he warned his party would not be able to defeat the “self-appointed champions of working people” unless his government was willing to tackling “all the problems that they prey upon”.

On immigration, he said Labour had previously “become a party that patronised working people” by not listening to “reasonable” concerns.

He reiterated his commitment to “smash the gangs” and “remove people with no right to be here”, but he also said a “moral line” was being crossed by other politicians on this issue.

“Controlling migration is a reasonable goal, but if you throw bricks and smash up private property, that’s not legitimate, that is thuggery,” he said.

He added: “Free speech is a British value and we have guarded it for centuries. But if you incite racist violence and hatred, that is not expressing concern – it’s criminal.”

Starmer acknowledged that his government had “asked a lot at the last budget”, but insisted it was a “huge step on the path of renewal”.

He urged people to stick with his government’s plan rather than taking the “tempting path” which offered a “quick fix, miracle cure, tax cuts that magically pay for themselves, a wealth tax that somehow solves every problem”.

He accused the SNP, Tories, Reform and “the extremes of the left” of wanting Britain to “fail”, adding: “We can all see these snake oil merchants on the right, on the left, but be in no doubt, conference, none of them have any interested in national renewal because decline is good for their business.”

The SNP accused the prime minister of making “false promises” and failing to deliver the change Labour had promised at last year’s election.

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “For all the conference’s attacks on Reform, Keir Starmer hasn't fought Farage – he has opened the door to him. You don't take on Farage by calling out his racism one day and then copying his policies the next.

“Scots would find the prime minister's supposed love for our saltire a bit more believable if Westminster stopped denying our democratic right to choose a future beyond the doom loop of broken Brexit Britain.”