Pictured and Image Credits: Keir Starmer (Heute.at), Kemi Badenoch (Flickr), Ed Davey (Wikimedia Commons), Nigel Farage (Heute.at) and Zack Polanski (Wikimedia Commons) [edited]
Beginning the 5th of September 2025, the UK’s leading political parties commenced this year’s cycle of conferences; establishing their policy aims, economic plans and making promises to the British public about what they will achieve if elected in 2029.
At a time in which Reform UK is performing frighteningly well in the polls and options for left wing voters seem almost hopeless – perhaps these conferences, more realistically, highlight the bleak landscape of UK politics and the extent to which these gatherings are used as a space for jingolistic populism, finger-pointing and merchandising whilst ignoring real threats to our country like the rising levels of poverty, white nationalism, and xenophobia.
Beginning first with Britain’s two ‘leading’ parties – both Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives spent much of their conferences aiming to dispel the realities of opposition and defend their past actions in government.
Echoing the eerily familiar tones of Farage, Starmer, in one of his speeches, fearmongers audiences with the alleged dangers illegal immigrants pose to the nation. The prime minister assures that “We will smash the gangs… We will remove people with no right to be here”. Whilst doing little to assert why this is a necessary measure, or how this will be done either practically or economically.
In this same speech, Starmer focuses heavily on the Labour government’s victories since assuming power – praising his own efforts to build affordable housing and reduce NHS waiting lists but doing nothing to disperse criticisms of the enduring two-child benefit cap, slashing the winter fuel fund and ignoring the genocide in Gaza.
In a final effort to secure centrist voters, Starmer assesses that the Labour Party is a party of the British people – whereas Farage (whom he finally identified as being his greatest competition) is a nationalist who “doesn’t like Britain”.
Performing similarly poorly, at the Conservative Party conference, Badenoch revealed the party’s new formula for renewal in a time of depleting popularity and an exodus of MPS defecting to Reform. The party leader revealed a plan to fire a third of all civil servants, reverse all of Labour’s tax measures, leave the European Convention of Human Rights (a promise Nigel Farage has also made if elected) and embark on a mission to deport all “unwelcome foreigners”.
Badenoch does nothing to confront Nigel Farage’s popularity (or the problems he poses to the Conservative party and democracy as a whole) in a cowardly attempt to pretend he is not real. She mentioned him once by name over the course of the 3-day conference, and it was only to critique his economic policy. Evidently, the Conservative party is not interested in rehabilitating itself into a centre-right party but instead wishes to be a secondary, weaker voice to Reform’s existing rhetoric.
With that, the Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Reform’s conferences were at least more interesting.
Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrat party did exceedingly well in the last election, managing to secure 72 seats primarily in the south-east of the country. The party used their conference to announce their plan for halving energy bills by 2035, uphold their support for Ukraine and do something the current Labour government is too spineless to do: call the war in Gaza a genocide.
Additionally, the party leader took the conference as an opportunity to deliver a damning speech, berating Farage and name-dropping him 31 times. Davey described Reform as a “force of darkness” and warned that Farage aims to “turn the UK into Trump’s America”.
Similarly, the new leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, called Farage a “Trump-loving stooge” at their conference, and warned voters of the harmful, fascistic rhetoric the party is spreading.
The Green Party, having reached over 100,000 members for the first time in the party’s history, used their conference to establish itself as more than simply a single-issue collective. Polanski announced plans to seek the “effective abolition of private landlordism” and assured disillusioned, left-wing voters that the Green Party would combat the financial inequalities the country is facing. Polanski states, “We will bring down your bills, we will bring down the cost of living, and we will protect our NHS”.
Finally, the Reform Parties conference was worryingly effective. The first of the parties to host their conference at the start of September, it was a “vastly bigger gathering than the party had last year” reporters told the BBC. Farage emphatically told supporters: “We will stop the boats within two weeks of winning government”. Later, referring to people who “come to the country illegally” as threats to the women and children of our nation.
This is worrying. Reform currently sits at nearly 250,000 members, winning 27% of the vote according to polls. Evidently, the parties’ rapid campaigning and merchandising are working.
At the conference, members were seen standing in line for Farage to sign their Reform-themed football jerseys that the Birmingham venue was selling. “Farage 10” read the attire. Additionally, the conference acted as an opportunity of redemption for Lucy Connolly – who was recently released from prison after serving fourteen of her thirty-one-month sentence for racist hate speech on X. She was a prominent participant in the conference, being permitted to give a speech claiming she was made to be “Sir Kier Starmer’s political prisoner” and defending her horrific comments made online last year following the Southport attack.
Ultimately, this season of party conferences has highlighted, more than anything, that the insidious, right-wing sloganism that Farage is relying upon to further his bigoted agenda is successful. The mutual failings of our country’s two conventionally popular parties have led to the erosion of political stability and given way to the rise of a populist far-right party that preaches xenophobia, racism and intolerance.
Unfortunately, it makes you wonder how much conferences, a fundamental part of campaigning under democracy, for the far right are less an opportunity to propose adaptable policy to the masses, but rather a chance to spread lies and vitriolic hatred.
