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Welcome to your Weekend Wire from Best for Britain.
This week saw Prime Minister Keir Starmer deliver a conference speech that seemed to quell his critics, outlining his vision for a “new Britain” and the need to stand against “racism” and “division”.
Tragically, within days a horrific attack on a Manchester synagogue had left two people dead and a terrorist incident declared - on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.
Horror in Manchester
On Friday, the two victims of the Manchester synagogue terrorist attack were named by police as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66. The attack took place at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, Greater Manchester. Police have also now confirmed that one of the victims was shot accidentally by an armed officer, while a second member of the public sustained non-life threatening gunshot injuries.
The attacker - now known to be Jihad al-Shamie, 35, a British citizen of Syrian descent - used a car to ram into the grounds and then stabbed worshippers in a seven-minute attack, before being shot by police. He has since been confirmed dead and three other arrests have been made.
His father, Faraj al-Shamie, called the news of the attack a “profound shock”, stating on social media: “The al-Shamie family in the UK and abroad strongly condemns this heinous act, which targeted peaceful, innocent civilians… our hearts and thoughts are with the victims and their families, and we pray for their strength and comfort.”
News updates will doubtless continue throughout the weekend, including on the BBC’s live blog [ [link removed] ]. We at Best for Britain send our deepest condolences to the families of those killed, and our thoughts are with all those injured, affected, and now fearful on what should have been a day of observance.
Headline act
For any Prime Minister, delivering the keynote speech at your party conference has got to be up there on the list of reasons for sleepless nights. For Starmer - with his poll ratings cratering and Andy Burnham snapping at his heels - this was surely no exception.
However, after enduring weeks of criticism for failing to squarely counter Reform UK’s increasingly extreme narrative on immigration - and some even accusing the government of emulating Nigel Farage’s position - Starmer came out fighting for a vision of Britain we can believe in. In a speech that took ruthless aim at Farage, Starmer said:
“We can all see our country faces a choice: a defining choice. Britain stands at a fork in the road. We can choose decency, or we can choose division. Renewal or decline. A country - proud of its values, in control of its future - or one that succumbs, against the grain of our history, to the politics of grievance. It is a test. A fight for the soul of our country, every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war, and we must all rise to this challenge.”
But as our Chief Executive Naomi Smith was quick to highlight “the challenge now is to deliver on these words… and lead us to being the outward-looking and confident country he described”. Read her words in full on the Best for Britain website [ [link removed] ].
And for an even deeper dive into “the speech that made sense of Starmer”, take a look at analysis from former Observer political editor - and Best for Britain board member - Toby Helm on our Substack [ [link removed] ].
Conference confidential
Best for Britain’s team returned from Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week following a triumphant few days, including nods towards our key campaign goal of a youth mobility scheme from Chancellor Rachel Reeves herself.
Whether it was our in-depth polling featured in the i [ [link removed] ] (more on this below) our detailed Decoding Populism work with Liam Byrne MP [ [link removed] ] on understanding Reform UK’s voter coalition, or our policy briefings with businesses, MPs and activists - our efforts led conversations throughout the convention centre and beyond, persuading more Labour reps and their stakeholders of the crucial importance of deeper UK-EU cooperation.
We couldn’t do it without the vital support of our backers - so a huge thank you, as always, for any donations, large or small.
Green Machine
But Starmer wasn’t the only one at it this week. On Friday, the newly minted leader of the Green Party of England and Wales delivered his first conference speech as head honcho. Unusually for a Green conference, however, Zack Polanski’s primary focus was not climate or the environment but on the related issue of ensuring the mega wealthy pay their fair share of tax.
The self-styled eco-populist said,
“We have been failed time and time again by a political class poisoned by extreme wealth. And you can see that poison everyday. Rough sleeping up 164% since 2010. Where half of renters are just one pay cheque away from losing their home. Water companies pump sewage into the water and charge us extra for the privilege. A country where we’re all paying the cost of the selling off of our shared assets. £250 more each household each year as a privatisation premium. A country where a tiny few have taken our power and wealth. Things must change.”
“All we do is win, win, win…
No matter what!” Alright, maybe that’s a bit premature. But we’ll take our campaign successes where we can find them. Following the aforementioned Chancellor’s warm words on the prospect of an “ambitious” youth mobility scheme [ [link removed] ] with the European Union (EU), our own Naomi Smith called on ministers to work to “bring down the upfront application costs and financial requirements” and for Reeves’ words to “now be met with action from both the UK and EU”.
Elsewhere, on the issue of carbon border taxes - which Best for Britain has been campaigning on since 2023 - Naomi welcomed [ [link removed] ] a reported move by the UK and EU to create temporary mechanisms to protect UK consumers and businesses from the impact of a new EU carbon tax, ahead of the UK bringing in its own version of the levy in 2027. As she said [ [link removed] ]:
“This common sense move will reduce costs and admin for businesses in the EU and UK while helping to boost economic growth in Britain. The government must now work with our European allies to fully align Britain’s own carbon tax regime to secure these benefits for the long-term.”
Newsflash!
Following our latest Decoding Populism webinar - available to watch back on our website [ [link removed] ] - Liam Byrne MP expanded on the findings with an op ed in the Times [ [link removed] ]. Highlighting that “international research shows countries under populist rule end up more than 10 per cent poorer within 15 years”, he rightly argues that Labour must stop fighting Farage on his chosen issues of immigration and culture wars. They must “expose his offer as Liz Truss 2.0 - a sugar rush of fantasy economics that would leave Britain poorer”.
Our research - with YouGov, Liam Byrne and KCL Professor Bobby Duffy - on the attack lines that could Reform UK the hardest also got a great write up in Byline Times [ [link removed] ], highlighting where the party are “most vulnerable to political attacks from their opponents”.
Shutting it down
In a not-entirely unexpected development, the US government shut down this week, after the Republicans and Democrats were unable to resolve a dispute over the budget. As the BBC’s explainer notes [ [link removed] ], this is due to the Democrats wanting to extend expiring tax credits for health insurance, reverse Trump’s Medicaid cuts and stop spending cuts to government health agencies. The shutdown means some government services are suspended, while around 40% of the federal workforce – about 750,000 people – are expected to be put on unpaid leave.
Trump has also suggested he may use the shutdown to make further, swingeing cuts to the federal government’s workforce, claiming “Democrat agencies” were a “political SCAM”. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that job cuts were “likely going to be in the thousands.” Follow live coverage via the New York Times [ [link removed] ].
Women speaking up
The ‘Pink Protest’ movement is a faction of wider anti-migrant protests centred around the claim that women and girls need protection from immigrant men, including refugees and asylum seekers. The fact that this group is almost silent on incidents of violence against women when immigrants aren’t involved (particularly when it involves members of the radical right) should give you an idea of their real motivations.
So when they arrived in Westminster this week, we took a walk down Whitehall to speak to the counter-protesters from Stand Up To Racism, and hear their views on women’s safety.
Hope Not Hate have a helpful explainer on the Pink Protest movement [ [link removed] ], and you can watch more of our content from the protests on Best for Britain’s social media platforms.
As one attendee told us:
“We’re horrified that women’s safety is being used to justify hatred - especially towards the most vulnerable people.”
In welcome Brexit-flavoured news this week, polling commissioned by Politico [ [link removed] ] found nearly two-thirds (63%) of voters back the government’s new agri-food deal (that’s SPS to you experts) - across both Remain and Leave supporters alike. Just 22% were opposed, the research by More in Common found. We’ll say a big fat Cheers/Sante/Prost/Salud to that!
Meanwhile our own poll published on the eve of Labour conference found that Labour’s winning electoral coalition from 2024 believe that the UK is going in the wrong direction and that Brexit is to blame!
Cheerful News of the Week
Worriers about the state of global democracy were heartened this week by President Maia Sandu and the victory of her pro-EU party in Moldova’s high-stakes parliamentary election. Officials described the result to Reuters [ [link removed] ] as a historic chance and the outcome is seen as the nation moving away from Russia’s sphere of influence.
Top foreign policy wonk Arthur Snell dissected all the need to know news in a must-read piece for Best for Britain’s Substack [ [link removed] ].
“The last time I checked, Northern Ireland did vote to leave (the EU),” Kemi Badenoch told a BBC journalist this week, before - agonisingly - being corrected in real time…
[NI of course voted by 56% to 44% in favour of staying in the EU in the 2016 referendum.]
Keep an eye out this weekend for the Czech elections currently taking place. Next week we are holding our latest UKTBC evidence session, this time on the timely issue of youth mobility. It’s also World Mental Health and World Homelessness Days.
Have a good one.
Jessica Frank-Keyes
Senior Press Officer
Best for Britain

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