Keir Starmer speech - live: Labour leader shakes off glitter ambush and unveils ‘mission for government’

The Labour leader said: “Today we turn the page, answer the question ‘Why Labour?’ with a plan for a Britain built to last.

“With higher growth, safer streets, cheap British power in your home, more opportunity in your community, the NHS off its knees. A Britain with its future back.

“It will require an entirely new approach to politics – Mission Government, new priorities, totally focused on the interests of working people, five national missions all fixed on a single-minded purpose to govern for the long-term.

“End the Tory disease of ‘sticking plaster politics’ with a simple Labour philosophy that together we fix tomorrow’s challenges, today.”

Keir Starmer has restated Labour’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself as he condemned attacks in the country by terror group Hamas, Archie Mitchell reports.

The Labour leader said he was “shocked and appalled” by the surprise attacks which have rocked the country since Saturday.

He said: “I utterly condemn the senseless murder of men, women and children, including British citizens in cold blood by the terrorists of Hamas.

“This party believes in the two state solution, a Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel. But this action by Hamas does nothing for Palestinians and Israel must always have the right to defend her people.”

Sir Keir Starmer said Labour would have to confront the challenges of a new “age of insecurity” and “find the hunger to win new opportunities”.

He said: “People are looking to us because they want our wounds to heal, and we are the healers.

“People are looking to us because these challenges require a modern state, and we are the modernisers.

“People are looking to us because they want to build a new Britain, and we are the builders.”

Keir Starmer has vowed to end the “chaos and crisis” under the Conservatives, with five PMs since 2016, praising families and businesses for “finding a way through the chaos”, Adam Forrest reports.

He promised to “end the Tory disease of sticking plaster politics with a simple Labour philosophy that together we fix tomorrow’s challenges, today.”

“Today we turn the page, answer the question ‘Why Labour?’ with a plan for a Britain built to last. With higher growth, safer streets, cheap British power in your home, more opportunity in your community, the NHS off its knees. A Britain with its future back.”

Starmer said he had “ripped antisemitism out by the roots” under his watch. In an appeal to patriotism, he said Labour was “no longer a party of protest, a party of service … Country first, party second.”

Video shows the protester who heckled Starmer being bundled into a police van outside the conference hall.

He can be heard shouting “people demand democracy” while in handcuffs as people watch on.

Reporters and other people outside the venue can be heard asking him for his name.

Sir Keir Starmer has promised Labour will give people the freedom to do the things they love, such as playing football and going fishing, Archie Mitchell reports.

The Labour leader said that is what his slogan “getting Britain’s future back” means.

Sir Keir said: “We have to be a government that takes care of the big decisions, so working people have the freedom to enjoy what they love or time.

“It could be football, fishing, or just a quiet time with your family.

“But we all need that conference. We all need the ability to look forward, to move forward, free from anxiety. That’s what getting our future back really means.”

Sir Keir Starmer shared a story of how the cost-of-living crisis “whittles away at our joy”, and said Labour must grasp big decisions for working people in the UK.

After sharing a story of his own holiday to the Lake District, the Labour leader said: “The reason I remember it, the privilege of it, is because on my first day back from holiday I was in a café, in Worthing, in Sussex, talking to people.

“And what one woman said, really stuck in my mind. She was a single mum, two kids. And she said to me: ‘It’s survival mode. I can’t think, ‘oh let’s do something nice’.

“There’s no long-term planning. No thinking about the future. I could see the hurt in her eyes as she told me. That’s what this cost-of-living crisis does.

“It intrudes on the little things we love. Whittles away at our joy. Days out, meals out, holidays the first things people cut back on. Picking up a treat in the supermarket just to put it back on the shelf.”

He added: “Conference, we have to be a government that takes care of the big decisions so working people have the freedom to enjoy what they love. More time, more energy, more possibility, more life.”

Sir Keir Starmer said the Conservative Party would “put the NHS in the ground” if it won the next election.

Highlighting the case of semi-professional footballer Hamza Semakula, who crowdfunded £15,000 for a private knee operation after injury threatened his career, Sir Keir said: “The whole point of our NHS is to be the crowdfunded solution for all of us.

“That’s the fundamental principle and at the next election it’s on the line.

“The Conservative Party that brought the NHS to its knees will put it in the ground.

“We have got to get it back on its feet.”

Protesters interrupting politicians’ conference speeches is fairly common, writes Jon Stone.

You only have to go back a year ago to Liz Truss’s Tory conference – which disrupted by two Greenpeace activists asking "who voted for this".

In 2017 Theresa May was also memorably handed a fake P45 by a prankster.

The speeches are is a magnet for protests because all the television cameras in the country are pointed at the same person.

But how do they get in there?

The fact is it would not have been difficult for the glitter-thrower to get in the room with Keir Starmer.

People can attend party conference either as Labour members, or as representatives of organisations, as long as they can pass a basic security check.

The leader’s speech is ticketed because of capacity in the room, but there are no restrictions on who can actually get in there.

If the protester was unable to get a ticket directly, it might  have been possible for them to swap with somebody else.

This is one reason why such events are fairly common.

Sir Keir Starmer promised NHS reform, warning the Labour Party conference: “If all we do is place the NHS on a pedestal then I’m afraid it will remain on life support.

“I know some people don’t like the word ‘reform’ but I tell you now there’s no other option.

“We must be the government that finally transforms our NHS. We can’t go on like this, with a sickness service. We need an NHS that prevents illness, keeps people healthy and out of hospital in the first place.

“We must use technology to overhaul every aspect of delivery, move care closer to communities, deploy the power of artificial intelligence to spot disease quickly.

“Mental health treatment when you need it: we’ll guarantee that. The 8am scramble for a GP appointment: we will end it. Dangerous waits for a cancer diagnosis: we will consign them to history.”