{"id":170383,"date":"2025-09-26T12:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/170383\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T12:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:54:08","slug":"keir-starmer-tries-to-rally-the-left-by-shadow-boxing-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/170383\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer tries to rally the left \u2013 by shadow-boxing the right"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo by Niklas Halle’n – WPA Pool \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister delivered a two-in-one speech this morning (26 September) at the Global Progressive Action Summit in London.<\/p>\n

In part one he defended what he called \u201ca multi-ethnic modern nation\u201d under siege from a \u201cpolitics of predatory grievance\u201d. In part two, he announced a mandatory digital ID policy to tackle illegal migration and fired the starting gun on the biggest civil liberties debate in Britain since the Covid-19 lockdowns.<\/p>\n

First to part one. It marks his most explicit statement of his centre-left beliefs after months in which the Government fought Reform on the basis of practicality rather than principle (much to the annoyance of Labour MPs).<\/p>\n

In a week in which President Trump claimed that Mayor Sadiq Khan was trying to introduce \u201cSharia Law\u201d in London, the PM took some time to defend the capital. He told delegates: \u201cThis city isn\u2019t the wasteland of anarchy that some would have you believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that right-wing caricatures of Britain\u2019s towns and cities \u201csimply do not match the reality we see around us\u201d and are \u201ca million miles away from reality\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he undertook a careful balancing act, saying \u201cthe worst thing that we can do is defend the status quo\u201d because working-class towns are \u201closing trust in our ability to deliver the change they want to see\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the speech Starmer did not name any opponents or opposition parties by name. Instead he alluded to \u201cthe politics of predatory grievance, preying on the problems of working people\u2026 against the politics of patriotic renewal\u201d. (In the Q&A that followed, he called Reform a \u201cdifferent proposition\u201d and said the stakes at the next election would be \u201cbigger than Labour\u201d.)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only \u00a38.99 per month<\/p>\n

And he directly addressed the Unite the Kingdom rally of two weeks ago, which saw supporters of the far-right leader and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson march through London. He said Britain should celebrate \u201cdifference under the same flag\u201d and then ominously warned, \u201cyou don\u2019t have to be a historian to know where it ends up\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the Q&A he said the march \u201csent shivers through the spines of many of our communities not just in London\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then came part two, as Starmer segued into immigration policy and announced the mandatory digital ID policy that was trailed in the media yesterday.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to knit the two parts of the speech together, Starmer said that allowing irregular migrants to work in the \u201cshadow economy\u201d was \u201cnot compassionate left-wing politics\u201d because such people are exploited. He added: \u201cwe do need to know who is in our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

The sudden pivot to a border control policy summed up the strange atmosphere of this event, a conference of the left in which everyone was talking about the right. There was much else they could have spoken about. For example, the fact that the four leaders Starmer assembled with for a Q&A after the speech \u2013 Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese \u2013 have also just recognised a state of Palestine. It went unmentioned. Instead they\u00a0all spoke of their struggles with rising immigration and shared tales of the right-wing bogeymen.<\/p>\n

[Further reading: Exclusive polling: How Burnham beats Reform<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Content from our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Niklas Halle’n – WPA Pool \/ Getty Images The Prime Minister delivered a two-in-one speech this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-170383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}