Sir Keir Starmer has vowed that Labour "will fight" their "rivals" Reform UK in a fiery showdown with his own MPs.
The Prime Minister addressed a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party last night after his "sell-out" EU deal, where he once again cast down the Tories as his official opposition.
He told MPs they now held a "moral responsibility to make sure Nigel Farage never wins" as he repeated a string of Labour attack lines against the Reform boss.
"The Conservatives are not our principal opponent," Starmer said. "Reform is our main rival for power."
'Reform is our main rival for power,' Starmer admitted
PA
"We have to be clear that every opportunity [Farage] has had in this Parliament to back working people, he's voted against. Telling the workers at Jaguar Land Rover they deserve to go bust.
"A state-slashing, NHS-privatising Putin apologist. Without a single patriotic bone in his body. We will take the fight to him. We will fight as Labour.
"We must unite the country against Reform. We must tackle the cost-of-living crisis. And we must show that we are the party - the only party - that can deliver change for working people."
But in the face of his tirade against a surging Reform, Starmer was forced to endure fierce questioning by furious MPs over his "island of strangers" migration comments, Gaza, trans people, and the party's strategy as a whole ahead of next year's set of local, Welsh and Scottish elections.
LATEST AS LABOUR BATTLES REFORM UK:
Starmer again labelled Farage 'a Putin apologist... without a single patriotic bone in his body'
GETTY
The PLP show-down came after more than 100 MPs signed a letter condemning his's looming welfare cuts.
Last week, 42 MPs, largely on the party's left, signed a letter speaking out against the cuts, before being joined by as many as 100 more, bringing the total to near 140.
The written rebellion could wipe out Starmer's working majority - and means that just 83 Labour MPs would have to rebel for its welfare plans to crumble at a vote in June.
And in Leeds, Rachel Reeves's local Labour Party branch has agreed to write to the Chancellor directly to voice its opposition to the cuts.
The Leeds West & Pudsey Constituency Labour Party (CLP) will warn Reeves that disabled people are "not responsible for the state of the national finances and should not be made to pay the price for Tory economic mismanagement".
Rachel Reeves has also faced the fury of Labour activists
PABut the Prime Minister's official spokesman has vowed that ministers will press on with the benefits reforms.
The current welfare system is "fundamentally not working and the argument for reform is overwhelming", he said.
Some reports have suggested ministers could remove the two-child benefit cap or reconsider its decision to means-test the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners, as a means of placating Labour rebels.
But Starmer's spokesman slapped down the claims, saying: "Means-testing winter fuel payments was a difficult decision, but it was one we had to take to repair our public finances and stabilise the economy."
