Long-standing racial prejudice has come back to British the political arena, which creates deeply uneasy, the Prime Minister warned, alerting that divisive far-right political tactics was “tearing our country apart”.
In conversation to GP and TV personality a well-known TV doctor, the prime minister pointed to the Reform UK party for enabling a return of racist and divisive political discourse that seemed a thing of the past years back”.
During the discussion, broadcast on a popular morning program this week, Starmer provided a clear indication that the two-child benefit cap would be lifted during the upcoming fiscal announcement later this month.
Asked if he planned to eliminate the limit, which charities have said is the biggest driver of poverty for children in the UK, the Prime Minister said: “Let me be perfectly clear I am determined to lower poverty rates for kids.”
He outlined measures the government has already launched including free school meals, breakfast clubs, and childcare and emphasized: “We need to do more than that, and I pledge and tell you I am personally committed to driving down childhood poverty.”
When pressed on whether his comments indicated he intended to remove the two-child limit, he said “It would be misleading to claim we plan to reduce child poverty unless I was certain that we will implement several steps in order to do so”.
The Chancellor, provided an equally strong hint earlier this week when she told a national radio station how ultimately, no child should suffer because their parents don’t have very much money”.
Government officials are reportedly planning to remove the cap completely, having originally looked at ways to taper it either for very large families or wealthier families. An economic thinktank projects this would cost about £3.5bn by 2029-30.
In the interview, the Prime Minister said the ideological split currently in Britain existed between the government’s vision for renewal versus “the toxic division of Reform” and others on the right that are “splitting the UK”.
“Certain language currently circulating – discriminatory talk, divisive rhetoric – that frankly I thought had been addressed long ago is returning to politics leaving people very scared,” he said.
“We have to stand up to that racism, that division, and we have to proudly say that British identity is to have concern for others, is about being fair, is to be tolerant and compassionate, and this is our pride.”
Starmer mirrored sentiments used by Wes Streeting, who warned earlier this month how a disturbing form of discrimination reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s had become alarmingly frequent once more with healthcare workers were primary targets of this trend.
The health secretary noted occurrences of both verbal and physical attacks targeting individuals due to race now happened so often that it had become “socially acceptable to be racist”.
“We’ve got to call time to discrimination across the UK and we’ve got to put that ugly racist sentiment that’s found expression in our country back in its box and reestablish a climate across Britain where racism is unacceptable to hold racist views,” the Health Secretary stated.
The Prime Minister used his speech during a major political gathering in September to outline political battle lines with his political opponents, stating that the public faced a “defining choice”.
The prime minister explained he was engaged in a struggle for the nation’s identity, and argued although the public expressed valid worries regarding unauthorized immigration, there was an ethical boundary which some politicians had overstepped.
Starmer pledged to challenge those who argued that non-white individuals could not be English or British and that families who had lived in Britain for years must be removed, saying people promoting such views constituted “an enemy of national renewal”.
“If you incite racist violence and hatred, that goes beyond concern: it’s criminal. Our political movement is proud of our flags, yet if they are painted alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to ‘go home’, that is not patriotism; that’s racism,” he informed supporters.
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