Chancellor Rachel Reeves will on Monday urge business leaders to focus on the threat posed by Reform UK, as part of a fierce attack by the Labour leadership on Nigel Farage’s party and its “racist” immigration policy.
Reeves will use her speech to the Labour conference in Liverpool to claim that Farage would go on a borrowing spree, disrupt the labour market and rip up an EU-UK trade deal. On Sunday, Starmer urged his party to prepare for the “fight of our lives” with Reform UK.
Reeves’ allies are frustrated that business leaders have failed to speak out against Farage and his economic policies, with one saying: “They have to wake up — they can’t be passive.”