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Decades-old racism has come back to British the political arena, which creates deeply uneasy, Keir Starmer has stated, cautioning that divisive hard-right political tactics are “splitting the UK”.

Addressing Discriminatory Language and Harmful Politics

In conversation to GP and TV personality Amir Khan, the prime minister pointed to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK of overseeing a return of racist and divisive political discourse which many believed was resolved years back”.

In the interview, which aired on a popular morning program this week, the PM provided his strongest signal that the two-child benefit cap could be removed during the upcoming fiscal announcement later this month.

Promise to Combat Child Poverty

When questioned if he planned to eliminate the limit, which charities have said is a major cause of child poverty in the UK, the Prime Minister said: “Let me be perfectly clear I am determined to drive child poverty down.”

He outlined steps the government has already launched including free school meals, breakfast clubs, and child care support but added: “We must go beyond these efforts, and I assure you and tell you I am personally committed on reducing childhood poverty.”

When pressed on whether his comments meant he would lift the two-child limit, Starmer said he “wouldn’t be telling you we aim to lower poverty among children if I wasn’t clear that we will implement various actions in order to do so”.

Clear Signals from the Chancellor

The Chancellor, gave an equally strong hint earlier this week stating to BBC Radio 5 Live how “in the end, no child should suffer because their parents don’t have very much money”.

Ministers are reportedly planning to lift the limit entirely, having originally looked at phasing it out either for very large families or richer ones. An economic thinktank has estimated the expense would be roughly £3.5 billion by the end of the decade.

Political Divide and National Renewal

During the discussion, the Prime Minister explained the political divide in the UK now was between Labour’s “patriotic national renewal” and “the toxic division of Reform” and others on the right that are “tearing our country apart”.

“Some of the rhetoric currently circulating – discriminatory talk, divisive rhetoric – that frankly I thought we had dealt with in the past is returning to politics and citizens are very scared,” he said.

“We have to stand up to that racism, that division, and declare confidently that British identity means showing empathy, is about being fair, is to be tolerant and kindness, which we value deeply.”

Reflecting Warnings from the Health Secretary

Starmer echoed sentiments used by the Health Secretary, who cautioned recently that a disturbing form of discrimination similar to past decades was now alarmingly frequent once more with NHS staff were primary targets of this trend.

Streeting said incidents of verbal and physical abuse targeting individuals due to race now happened so often that it was now “tolerated to hold racist views”.

“It is time to put a stop to discrimination in this country and we need to place such harmful attitudes that has emerged nationally where it belongs and once again create an environment across Britain where it is not socially acceptable to be racist,” the Health Secretary stated.

Defining Choice for the Public

The Prime Minister spoke during a major political gathering this autumn to draw political battle lines between himself and Farage, stating that the public faced a “defining choice”.

The prime minister explained he was involved in a “fight for the soul of our country”, noting although the public expressed valid worries regarding unauthorized immigration, there was an ethical boundary which some politicians had crossed.

Starmer pledged to “fight” anyone who argued that people who were not white could not be English or British and that families who had lived in the UK for generations should be deported, stating those advocating these ideas constituted “opposed to the country’s progress”.

“Encouraging racist violence and hostility, that is not expressing concern: it is illegal. This party – this great party – is proud of our flags, but if they are displayed alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to ‘go home’, that’s not pride; that’s racism,” he told activists.