Reform’s immigration policy is “racist”, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

He was reacting after Nigel Farage‘s party said it would axe the right of migrants to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), ban anyone who is not a UK citizen from claiming benefits, and force those applying for UK citizenship to renounce other citizenship.

This policy could impact hundreds of thousands of people, although Reform has exempted EU citizens with settled status from its plans to ban migrant access to benefits and its policies on ILR.

Indefinite leave to remain is the status which grants legal migrants the ability to settle in the UK without the need to renew a visa every few years.

Labour conference in Liverpool – follow live updates

Speaking to the BBC, the prime minister and Labour leader said: “Well, I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral. It needs to be called out for what it is.”

But he did not condemn those supporting Reform UK.

Sir Keir added: “No, I think there are plenty of people who either vote Reform or are thinking of voting Reform who are frustrated.

“They had 14 years of failure under the Conservatives, they want us to change things.

“They may have voted Labour a year ago, and they want the change to come more quickly. I actually do understand that.”

He had said previously: “It is one thing to say we’re going to remove illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here. I’m up for that.

“It is a completely different thing to say we are going to reach in to people who are lawfully here and start removing them. They are our neighbours.

“They’re people who work in our economy. They are part of who we are. It will rip this country apart.”

Labour has proposed its own changes to indefinite leave to remain, although it does not appear to be retrospective like Reform’s.

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Responding to the prime minister on social media, Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said “Labour’s new message to the British electorate just dropped:

“‘Pay hundreds of billions for foreign nationals to live off the state forever, or we’ll call you racist!'”

Polling released at the start of the Labour conference by Survation shows that 65% of party members think Labour is going in the wrong direction, 64% think Sir Keir has done badly since taking office and 53% think the party should change leader before the next general election.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Housing Secretary Steve Reed defended his government’s record.

He claimed wages went up faster in 10 months under Labour compared to 10 years under the Conservatives.

But he claimed it “takes time” for improvements to really be felt by the public, “so we have to stay on course and not divert on the basis of one poll or another”.

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Mr Reed said that the “revolving door” of Tory leaders was one of the reasons for Labour’s tricky inheritance – and he was “absolutely” sure Sir Keir should lead the party into the next general election.

The minister went on to brand Mr Farage a “plastic” patriot after the Reform UK leader “begged” the US Congress to put sanctions on British workers.

More than half of Labour members do not want Sir Keir Starmer to fight the next general election as party leader, a new poll has revealed.

The Survation survey for LabourList, shared with Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, showed 53% of the party membership want a new leader by the time of the next election, while only 31% want Sir Keir to remain in post until then.

The findings lay bare the scale of the challenge facing the prime minister as he heads to Liverpool for the Labour Party conference.

He arrives at the gathering just days after a separate poll showed Reform leader Nigel Farage had a clear path to Number 10, and after Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham appeared to set out his own bid for the Labour leadership in a series of interviews in which he claimed Labour MPs had privately urged him to return to Westminster.

In a direct criticism of Sir Keir, Mr Burnham – who previously ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 and 2015 – said Number 10 had created a “climate of fear” among MPs and created “alienation and demoralisation” within the party.

And in an apparent rebuke of the government’s policies and priorities so far, Mr Burnham set out an alternative vision to “turn the country around”, including higher council tax on expensive homes in London and the South East and for greater public control of energy, water and rail.

It follows a turbulent few weeks in which the prime minister has lost several close appointments: Angela Rayner as deputy prime minister, Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, Paul Ovenden as his director of political strategy and most recently Steph Driver, his director of communications.

The LabourList poll, which surveyed 1,254 Labour members between 23 and 25 September, also showed Labour members were unhappy with the general direction of the government, with 65% saying Sir Keir was heading in the wrong direction, compared with 26% who said he was getting it right.

More than 60% said he had governed badly, compared with 35% who had said he had done a good job.

The results will add to further grim reading for Labour after a mega poll conducted by YouGov for Sky News showed that Mr Farage is on course to be the next prime minister.

The YouGov MRP polling projection, based on a 13,000 sample taken over the last three weeks, suggested an election held tomorrow would see a hung parliament with Reform UK winning 311 of the 650 seats – 15 seats short of the formal winning line of 326.

The projection of Commons seats in Great Britain puts Reform UK on 311 seats, Labour on 144 seats, Liberal Democrats on 78 seats, Conservatives on 45 seats, SNP on 37 seats and Greens on seven seats, with Plaid on six seats and three seats won by left-wing challengers.

Northern Ireland constituencies are excluded.

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The result would see Labour lose around two-thirds of their existing seats, down from the 411 they won in last year’s general election.

It would also represent the worst result for the party since 1931 and would mark a further decline on the party’s performance under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, when the party won 202 seats.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir’s approval rating has hit a historic low. Just 13% of the public approves of the job he is doing as PM, according to a new Ipsos poll, while 79% is dissatisfied – giving him a net approval rating of -66.

That is worse than the previous record the pollster has recorded of -59, held by both Rishi Sunak in April 2024, and Sir John Major in August 1994.

The Labour Party doesn’t fare much better, with just 22% of the public saying they would vote for it if a general election were held today, while 34% would vote for Reform UK.

But Sir Keir has insisted that he can “pull things around”, telling The Sunday Times: “It is the fight of our times and we’ve all got to be in it together. We don’t have time for introspection, we don’t have time for navel-gazing.

“You’ll always get a bit of that at a Labour Party conference, but that is not going to solve the problems that face this country.

“Once you appreciate the change – in the sense of the division that Reform would bring to our country and the shattering of what we are as a patriotic country – then you realise this is a fight which in the end is bigger than the Labour Party.”

Sir Keir has previously warned that the next election will be an “open fight” between Labour and Reform UK.

The boss of Unite, Labour’s biggest union funder, has threatened to break its link with the party unless it changes direction.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the union, told Sky News that, on the eve of a crucial party conference for the prime minister, Unite‘s support for Labour was hanging in the balance.

She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “My members, whether it’s public sector workers all the way through to defence, are asking, ‘What is happening here?’

“Now when that question cannot be answered, when we’re effectively saying, ‘Look, actually we cannot answer why we’re still affiliated’, then absolutely I think our members will choose to disaffiliate and that time is getting close.”

Asked when that decision might be made, she cited the budget, on 26 November, as “an absolutely critical point of us knowing whether direction is going to change”.

Ms Graham, who became leader in 2021, has been a long-time critic of Sir Keir Starmer‘s agenda, accusing him of lacking vision.

The union has campaigned against his decision to cut winter fuel allowance for pensioners – which was later reversed – and has called for more taxes on the wealthy.

But the firm threat to disaffiliate, and a timetable, highlights the acute trouble Sir Keir faces on multiple fronts, after a rocky few months which have seen his popularity plummet in the polls and his administration hit by resignations and scandals.

There is now open discussion about his leadership, with Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, claiming he’s been urged by MPs to mount a challenge.

Unite has more than a million members, the second-largest union affiliated to Labour. It donates £1.5m a year from its membership fees to the party.

The union did not make an additional donation to Labour at the last election – as it has done previously – but was the biggest donor to its individual MPs and candidates. It has donated millions to the party in the past.

Any decision to disaffiliate would need to be made at a Unite rules conference; of which the next is scheduled for 2027, but there is the option to convene emergency conferences earlier.

Just 15 months into Sir Keir’s premiership, in which he has promised to champion workers’ rights, Ms Graham’s comments are likely to anger the Labour leadership.

Read more: Now is moment of ‘maximum danger’ for Starmer, Harriet Harman warns

Unite, earlier this year, voted to suspend former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner of her union membership because of the government’s handling of a long-running bin strike in Birmingham.

Ms Graham has described the left-wing party being launched by Jeremy Corbyn as a “sideshow” and has brushed off speculation of a leadership challenge by Mr Burnham.

This summer, she said if Unite dropped support from Labour it would “focus on building a strong, independent workers’ union that was the true, authentic voice for workers”.

The annual Labour Party conference kicks off in Liverpool from Sunday.

As a union affiliated with Labour, Unite has seats on the party’s ruling national executive committee and can send delegates to its annual conference.

Watch the full interview with Sharon Graham on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sky News