Sir Keir Starmer has launched a major attack on Reform UK’s new candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, accusing him of wanting to “tear people apart”.

Reform UK on Tuesday unveiled former university professor Matt Goodwin as its candidate for the by-election which will be held on February 28.

The Prime Minister said that only Labour can stop Reform UK at the by-election, which has already seen the Labour’s ruling body refuse to allow Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham stand.

Speaking en route to a visit to China, the first by a UK Prime Minister for eight years, Starmer told reporters: “There’s only one party can stop Reform, and that’s the Labour Party.

“And we can already see what the by election is going to be about, which is Labour values, which are about delivering, focusing on the cost of living, with a strong record actually, of that constituency, of what we’ve already done versus Reform.”

The PM then took aim at Goodwin himself, saying: “And you can see from their candidates what politics they’re going to bring to that constituency, the politics of division, of toxic division and tearing people apart.

“That is not what that constituency is. That’s not what Manchester is about.

“So this is a straight fight between Labour and Reform, and there’s only one party that can stop the politics of Reform in the by election, and that’s the Labour Party.”

Turning to why Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee turned down Burnham for the seat, the PM said the party had to limit its battles and not add another one by having to stand a new candidate in Greater Manchester if Burnham stood down.

He said: “We’ve got really important elections in Scotland, in Wales and across England.

“They matter to millions of people and I want today, and I wanted last week and the week before all of our focus to be on those fights that we have to have.”

He added: “I was pretty certain that we would retain Manchester, of course, but the point is in order to retain it we’d have to put our resource, our money and our people into an election we didn’t need to have.

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“That would inevitably have been at the expense of the elections we have to have.

“I’ve been working very closely with our Welsh team, our Scottish team, our teams across England in relation to the campaigns we’re already running there.”

“So I think the secondary question of who would have won it is a secondary question.

“The fact of fighting on another front when you’re already fighting in fraught battles in Scotland, Wales and England is the very reason the rule was introduced in the first place.”

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