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Historical racial prejudice is returning within UK politics, which makes people feel deeply uneasy, the Prime Minister has stated, alerting that polarizing far-right politics was “splitting the UK”.

Tackling Discriminatory Language and Divisive Politics

Speaking to doctor and media figure Amir Khan, Starmer pointed to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for enabling a return to discriminatory and divisive politics “that frankly I thought we had dealt with years back”.

In the interview, which aired on ITV’s Lorraine show this week, the PM provided a clear indication suggesting the limit on child benefits would be lifted in the budget later this month.

Commitment to Combat Child Poverty

Asked if he planned to eliminate this restriction, which charities have said is the biggest driver of poverty for children in the UK, the Prime Minister responded: “I can tell you in no uncertain terms I will strive to drive child poverty down.”

He outlined measures the government has already launched such as no-cost school lunches, breakfast clubs, and childcare but added: “Further action is necessary, and I assure you that I will personally focus to driving down childhood poverty.”

Pressed about if his remarks indicated he intended to remove the two-child cap, he stated “I would not say we aim to lower child poverty if I wasn’t clear that we will implement various actions for that purpose”.

Strong Indications from the Chancellor

Rachel Reeves, provided a similarly clear signal on Monday when she told a national radio station how finally, no child should suffer if their parents are struggling financially”.

Ministers are understood to be preparing to remove the cap completely, having originally looked at gradual removal for bigger households or richer ones. An economic thinktank has estimated the expense would be roughly £3.5 billion by the end of the decade.

Ideological Split and National Renewal

In the interview, the Prime Minister said the ideological split in the UK now existed between Labour’s “patriotic national renewal” versus Reform’s harmful divisiveness and other right-wing groups that are “tearing our country apart”.

“Some of the rhetoric currently circulating – racist rhetoric, polarizing language – which I believed was resolved in the past is coming back into politics and it makes people feel very scared,” he said.

“We must confront to that racism, that divisiveness, and we have to proudly say that British identity is to have concern for others, requires rationality, entails tolerance and compassionate, which we value deeply.”

Echoing Warnings from the Health Secretary

Starmer echoed language used by Wes Streeting, who cautioned earlier this month that an “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s had become alarmingly frequent once more and that NHS staff were facing the worst of this trend.

The health secretary said incidents of both verbal and physical attacks based on people’s skin colour now happened so often making it “socially acceptable to be racist”.

“We’ve got to call time on racism across the UK and we need to place such harmful attitudes that’s found expression nationally where it belongs and once again create an environment across Britain that rejects racism to hold racist views,” Streeting said.

Defining Choice for the Public

Starmer spoke during a major political gathering this autumn to outline political battle lines with his political opponents, stating that voters faced a crucial decision.

He said he was involved in a “fight for the soul of our country”, and argued that while the public had “reasonable” concerns regarding unauthorized immigration, there was an ethical boundary which some politicians had overstepped.

The PM vowed to “fight” those claiming that people who were not white were not truly British and that families residing in Britain for years should be deported, 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. This party – this great party – is proud of our flags, yet if they are painted with hateful messages, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to leave the country, that is not patriotism; that is pure discrimination,” he told activists.