Starmer: Next election will be 'open fight' between Labour and Reform

Sir Keir Starmer has said the next election will be an "open fight" between Labour and Reform UK.

The prime minister, speaking at a conference alongside the leaders of Canada, Australia and Iceland, said the UK is "at a crossroads". "There's a battle for the soul of this country, now, as to what sort of country do we want to be?" he said.

"Because that toxic divide, that decline with Reform, it's built on a sense of grievance." It is the first time Sir Keir has explicitly said the next election would be a straight fight between his party and Reform - and comes the day before the Labour conference begins. Just hours before, after Sky News revealed Nigel Farage is on course to replace him, as a seat-by-seat YouGov poll found an election held tomorrow would result in a hung parliament, with Reform winning 311 seats - just 15 short of the 326 needed to win overall.

Once the Speaker, whose seat is unopposed, and Sinn Fein MPs, who do not sit in parliament, are accounted for, no other party would be able to secure more MPs, so Reform would lead the government. Sir Keir said there is a "right-wing proposition" the UK has not had before, as it has been decades of either a Labour or Tory government, "pitched usually pretty much on the centrepiece of politics, the centre ground of politics".

The PM said Reform and its leader, Mr Farage, provide a "very different proposition" of "patriotic national renewal" under Labour and a "toxic divide". He described his Labour government of being "capable of expressing who and what we are as a country accurately and in a way where people feel they're valued and they belong, and that we can actually move forward together".

Sir Keir referenced a march down Whitehall two weeks ago, organised by Tommy Robinson, as having "sent shivers through the spines of many communities well away from London". Elon Musk appeared via videolink at the rally and said "violence is coming to you.