Keir Starmer Brushes Off Heckler To Show He Is Ready To Be Prime Minister

Analysis: The Labour leader delivered an assured performance but warned his upbeat party that the next election isn't in the bag.
A protester throws glitter over and disrupts Labour leader Keir Starmer making his keynote speech during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
A protester throws glitter over and disrupts Labour leader Keir Starmer making his keynote speech during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
Stefan Rousseau - PA Images via Getty Images

If a moment can define a politician, then what happened at 2.08pm today on the main stage of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool may be when Keir Starmer finally sealed the deal with the British public.

While the opinion polls have been showing for months that the public is sick of the Tories, they have also suggested that people are yet to be convinced by Labour or its leader.

Starmer is too cautious, too stilted, just too boring to lead the country, his detractors claim.

But the way he responded when a protester rushed the stage, covered him in glitter and grabbed him as he prepared to deliver his keynote speech will go a long way to disproving those assumptions.

As the man was dragged away, Starmer took off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves and got on with it.

One Starmer ally told HuffPost UK: “It just shows his strength of character that he was able to brush that off and go on and deliver the speech of his life.

“He is unbelievably determined, which doesn’t always come across in public. But his reaction to the protester showed that in spades.”

The speech itself, once he was able to deliver it, did the job that it was intended to do - reassure people Labour has a plan to improve the country and that Starmer himself is ready to be prime minister.

After the chaos and controversy of last week’s Tory conference, the contrast was stark.

However, Starmer also told his troops - who are now daring to dream of being back in government - that victory is far from in the bag.

Warning that the Tories will fight dirty to cling on to power, he declared: “This isn’t over. In fact, it’s barely begun. So we have to be disciplined. Focused. Ready to fight back.”

He began that with what one supporter described as “a bold pitch to disaffected Tories to come and join us”.

The Conservatives are now submerged in “the murky waters of populism and conspiracy”, Starmer said, while Labour are now the party of the mainstream majority.

“Labour serves working people across all these islands,” he said. “There’s nothing more important, no distractions, no higher cause. That’s who we stand for.”

If the aim of the speech was to convince the country that Labour is ready for power, it certainly achieved that.

But it was his actions before he even uttered a word of it which all-but guarantees Keir Starmer will be the country’s next prime minister.

Close

What's Hot