Labour deputy chief requires her social gathering to ‘reduce via all of the noise’ and unite behind Sir Keir Starmer amid rising Reform menace
Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell says her party have a ‘big repair job to do’ and ‘have got to get their act together’ and unite behind Sir Keir Starmer to beat Reform.
She accused Reform of ‘blaming all the ills of the country on immigrants’ and said ‘division and hate was ripping through our communities’.
Left winger Ms Powell, who acceded to the deputyship following an election after previous incumbent Angela Rayner was kicked out of the role in disgrace over her tax affairs, said today: ‘I want us to be cutting through all the noise that exists.
‘We have got to really come together and all tell that story much more strongly because otherwise we leave the space for our opponents to occupy and I don’t want to see any more councils run by Reform or see them getting a foothold in Scotland or Wales or the SNP continuing as a government in Scotland so there’s a lot at stake.
‘We have got to get our act together.’
Ms Powell called on politicians to put aside their ‘own personal political fortunes’ and back the Prime Minister ‘because of what we fear may come if Labour does not succeed’.
‘We have to succeed because the future of our democracy and the future of our country depends on it not just for the next General Election in three years’ time but for some big elections next year as well,’ she said.
Ms Powell, who was previously sacked from her role as Leader of the House, beat Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to take up the role seven weeks ago today.
Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell says her party have a ‘big repair job to do’ and ‘have got to get their act together’ and unite behind Sir Keir Starmer to beat Reform
She accused Reform of ‘blaming all the ills of the country on immigrants’ and said ‘division and hate was ripping through our communities’. Pictured: Reform leader Nigel Farage
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said Labour must unite as internal wranglings and poor poll performances continued to split the party.
And she agreed with potential leadership challenger Wes Streeting’s comments that Labour was being seen as the ‘maintenance department for the country’.
She said Reform and other political opponents were offering ‘the wrong direction for the country and the wrong prognosis for what is wrong’, accusing them of ‘putting communities and neighbourhoods against each other instead of addressing these big fundamental issues that we have got’.
She said she worried ‘about people around the country looking at their neighbours differently and looking suspiciously at others in supermarkets thinking ‘why can they afford more than I can afford because I am working really hard and other people have got more than me?’.’
Asked whether she backed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s new tougher immigration stance, Ms Powell told the BBC that immigration was not ‘her diagnosis of what was wrong with the country’.
‘We have got to show that we can control all our borders but our plans also include bringing in more fair and safer routes.
‘If we did as Nigel Farage thinks, rounding up all the immigrants and kicking them out – would that make life better for all the people in this country? No, it wouldn’t.
‘That is not my diagnosis of what is wrong. We have got a deeply unequal country and an economy that does not work for ordinary people. Life has got harder and wages have got lower. Housing has got more insecure. Public services have got poorer. We are rewiring the country.’
‘We have to make the argument that progressive mainstream politics can be a force for good and will change people’s lives for the better. We have got some good things to say and we are really now going to knit those together in a strong Labour story and get behind that and get behind Keir to make it.’
