Sir Keir Starmer has declared himself a “proud Englishman” and emphasised the importance of patriotism, a week before Labour is expected to face heavy pressure from Reform UK in local elections.
The UK prime minister hosted a St George’s Day event on Tuesday, on the eve of the annual celebration of the patron saint of England. Guests at Downing Street were served regional dishes such as pork pies from Melton Mowbray, Eccles cakes from Lancashire and Bakewell tarts, as well as English sparkling wine.
The event provided Starmer with a platform to associate himself with traditions and a nostalgic vision of England that some people are more likely to associate with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. Voters head to the polls on May 1 to choose more than 1,600 councillors in almost 25 English local authorities.
Six mayoralties are also up for election, while a Westminster by-election for the Cheshire seat of Runcorn & Helsby will pit Reform UK against Labour.
In remarks that will be read as an eleventh-hour pitch to voters, Starmer said “football, festivals, cricket and Shakespeare” were among the “wonderful traditions and so many individual, personal reasons that make us proud to be English”.
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The country boasted rich scenery such as the “rocky coves” of Cornwall, the “incomparable beauty” of the Lake District and the North Downs chalk hills, he added.
Hailing the nation’s creativity, he paid tribute to England’s musical heritage, spanning Edward Elgar and the Rolling Stones, as well as artists from JMW Turner to Tracey Emin.
Former Arsenal and England football captain Tony Adams, Paralympic gold medallist Sarah Storey and several TV personalities joined public sector workers including NHS staff and police officers at the event.
In a warning about the threat posed by “people trying to sow division in our communities”, likely to be read as a veiled reference to populist forces such as Reform, he cautioned against the misuse of the “red and white of our flag”.
Describing patriotism as being “about serving the country we love”, the prime minister rallied guests to “fight for our flag and for our values”. He harked back to efforts to quell and clean up the riots that erupted in towns across England last summer after the mass stabbings in Southport, fuelled by misinformation and the incitement of violence on social media.
Greg Rosen, a party historian and author of Old Labour to New, said Starmer’s focus on patriotism was an attempt to re-emphasise a tradition within Labour that was discarded and undermined by Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor as party leader.
“Labour is the party that put Churchill not Chamberlain into Downing Street, that created Nato, that championed robust deterrence of autocratic aggression, in Korea, in the Falklands, and an independent nuclear deterrent,” Rosen said. “Corbyn did not reflect that patriotic tradition and alienated many Labour voters.”
Farage has often campaigned with a focus on patriotic values. Last year the Reform leader attacked former prime minister Rishi Sunak last year when he left a D-Day commemoration in France early.
Starmer’s intervention came after Kemi Badenoch said earlier in the day that the local elections were taking place just six months after she was elected Tory leader, making it “very, very difficult for us to make inroads in such a short period of time”.
Badenoch’s attempt to manage expectations comes as the Conservatives average 21 per cent in the polls, trailing in third place behind both Labour, which is averaging 24 per cent, and Reform UK, on 25 per cent.
When local elections were last held in these councils in 2021, the Conservatives were enjoying a bounce in the polls from the Covid-19 vaccine rollout and then-prime minister Boris Johnson was still largely popular with the public.
Badenoch did not dispute that her leadership had come in for heavy criticism from quarters of her party, but argued: “It happens to every single leader of every single party, even when they are successful. It happened to David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson . . . Being in politics is to be criticised every single day.”
She told the BBC: “The job of a politician is to make difficult decisions and some people will be upset about that. That is not the measure of whether we are doing a good job.”
Data visualisation by Martin Stabe
