🔗 Share this article Xenophobia Making a Comeback in British Political Landscape, Leaving Citizens Fearful, Starmer Warns Decades-old racial prejudice is returning to UK politics, and it creates fearful, Keir Starmer emphasized, cautioning that polarizing far-right politics are “tearing our country apart”. Confronting Racist Language and Harmful Politics In conversation with doctor and media figure Amir Khan, the prime minister pointed to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for enabling the revival to discriminatory and divisive politics that seemed a thing of the past long ago”. During the discussion, broadcast on ITV’s Lorraine show this week, Starmer also gave his strongest signal suggesting the limit on child benefits would be lifted during the upcoming fiscal announcement in the coming weeks. Promise to Combat Child Poverty When questioned whether he planned to eliminate the limit, as noted by advocacy groups is the biggest driver of child poverty in the UK, the Prime Minister said: “I can tell you in no uncertain terms I am determined to lower poverty rates for kids.” He listed measures the government has already launched including free school meals, breakfast clubs, and childcare and emphasized: “We must go beyond these efforts, and I pledge that I am dedicated to cutting child poverty.” When pressed about if his remarks meant he intended to remove the two-child limit, Starmer stated “I would not say we are going to drive down child poverty if I wasn’t clear that we will implement various actions to achieve this”. Clear Indications from the Chancellor The Chancellor, gave a similarly clear signal on Monday when she told BBC Radio 5 Live that finally, children must not be punished if their parents are struggling financially”. Ministers are understood to be preparing to lift the limit entirely, having originally looked at gradual removal either for very large families or wealthier families. An economic thinktank projects the expense would be about £3.5bn by 2029-30. Political Divide and Country’s Revival During the discussion, Starmer explained the political divide in the UK now was between the government’s vision for renewal versus Reform’s harmful divisiveness and other right-wing groups that are “tearing our country apart”. “Parts of the discourse being used – discriminatory talk, polarizing language – which I believed we had dealt with long ago has reemerged in political debate leaving people fearful,” he stated. “We have to stand up such discrimination, that division, and affirm with pride that to be British means showing empathy, is about being fair, entails tolerance and kindness, and this is our pride.” Echoing Concerns from the Health Secretary The prime minister mirrored sentiments expressed by Wes Streeting, who cautioned recently how a disturbing form of discrimination reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s had become alarmingly frequent again and that healthcare workers were facing the worst of it. The health secretary said occurrences of both verbal and physical attacks targeting individuals due to race had become so frequent that it was now “acceptable to express racism”. “We’ve got to call time to discrimination across the UK and we’ve got to put such harmful attitudes that has emerged nationally where it belongs and reestablish a climate in this country that rejects racism to be racist,” Streeting said. Defining Choice for the Public Starmer used his speech during a major political gathering in September to draw clear divisions between himself and Farage, stating that voters faced a “defining choice”. He said he was engaged in a “fight for the soul of our country”, noting that while the public expressed valid worries regarding unauthorized immigration, there was “a moral line” that Farage and others had crossed. Starmer vowed to “fight” those who argued that people who were not white were not truly British and that households who had lived in the UK for generations should be deported, saying those advocating these ideas were “an enemy of national renewal”. “Encouraging racial attacks and hatred, that is not expressing concern: it’s criminal. This party – this great party – values national symbols, but if they are displayed alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to leave the country, that is not patriotism; that is pure discrimination,” he told supporters.