Sir Keir Starmer has tried to revive his flounder­ing premi­er­ship by urging his flag-wav­ing Labour party to launch a “pat­ri­otic” fight against Nigel Far­age’s Reform UK, declar­ing: “I don’t believe Bri­tain is broken.”

The prime min­is­ter used the threat of Far­age as a ral­ly­ing cry in his speech to the Labour con­fer­ence, accus­ing the Reform leader of “stir­ring the pot of divi­sion” and want­ing Bri­tain to fail.

Call­ing Far­age “a snake oil sales­man”, he stepped up his cri­ti­cism of people seek­ing to sow “fear and dis­cord across our coun­try”.

Starmer arrived in Liv­er­pool with wide­spread dis­con­tent over his lead­er­ship, spec­u­la­tion that he could face a chal­lenge after a round of elec­tions next May and a calam­it­ous -54 YouGov approval rat­ing.

In a cru­cial speech, Starmer pitched his mes­sage at his party’s work­ing-class base, prom­ising to cut immig­ra­tion, feting industry and brand­ing Labour “the pat­ri­otic party” as act­iv­ists waved flags they had been given.