The Prime Minister has told Lancashire residents he appreciates that they may feel “frustrated” after Labour’s first year in power – but has warned that a Reform government would be “an absolute disaster” for the defence of the nation.
Sir Keir Starmer was responding to a question from the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) during a visit to the BAE Systems site at Warton on Tuesday.
Reform has described his comments as “desperate”.
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The Prime Minister was asked how he would reflect on the fact that Labour won 12 out of the 15 constituencies in Lancashire at last year’s general election – but less than 12 months later, the party was decimated at the local elections to Lancashire County Council, when it dropped from 32 members to just five and lost its status as the official opposition group.
In those elections, Reform UK came from a standing start to take control of the authority, scooping 53 seats and a comfortable outright majority, while Labour’s tally was outstripped by the Conservatives and the seven independents who were elected – several of whom had previously represented the party before leaving in 2023/24.
Sir Keir said: “We inherited 14 years of complete failure and I always said that it would take us time to turn that around – and it will take us time to turn that around. I do understand that people are frustrated.”
However, he also took the opportunity of the reason for his visit to Lancashire – to herald an £8bn deal with Turkey for the purchase of 20 Typhoon jets, produced at BAE’s Warton and Samlesbury sites – to hit out at Reform. He claimed that the almost 6,000 jobs secured for the next decade by the Turkey agreement would not have happened if the party was leading the country.
“I do want to say this to everybody in Lancashire…if you want to win orders like this with countries like Turkey – because we’re leading NATO countries – you have to be a leading NATO country.
“You have to be strong on defence and security – and the biggest challenge for NATO at the moment is the conflict in Ukraine.
“Reform are Putin-friendly – there is no way these orders could be won with a Reform government. And these jobs that are now going to be here for 10 years simply wouldn’t be here, because Reform would be an absolute disaster for [the] defence and security of our country,” Sir Keir added.
A spokesperson for Reform UK said in response to the Prime Minister’s comments that they were “a desperate smear from a desperate Prime Minister who is running out of ideas”.
“It’s no wonder that he is one of the most unpopular prime ministers in British history.
“Let’s not forget that Keir Starmer backed Jeremy Corbyn to become our prime minister – a man who wants the UK to leave NATO and fawned over his ‘friends’ in Hamas and Hezbollah. If Starmer had got his way, we would be experiencing a national security catastrophe.” the party spokesperson added.
In their general election “contract” – or manifesto – last year, Reform made a series of pledges on defence, including increasing spending on it to 2.5 percent of GDP by the third year of a Reform government and upping that to three percent within six years.
The party said that the commitment – along with recruiting an extra 30,000 personnel to the army – would “ensure our lead role in NATO”.
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