Watch SIR Keir Starmer lead Labour conference singing God Save the King for first time
Fears that protesters could disrupt the moment appeared not to materialise, as the conference hall sang the national anthem following a tribute to the UK's "greatest monarch" Elizabeth II
Dan Bloom
Daily Mirror
Online Political Editor
25 Sep 2022
Keir Starmer today led Labour’s conference in singing God Save The King for the first time after a tribute to “greatest monarch” Elizabeth II.
The Labour leader opened the gathering by tribute to the late Queen, held a minute’s silence in her memory and sang the National Anthem, backed by the shadow cabinet.
He appeared to have a tear in his eye at the end of the one-verse rendition.
Some Labour figures' fears that objectors could disrupt the event appeared not to materialise, as a witness in the hall in Liverpool said there was “not a murmur” of dissent.
Keir Starmer today led Labour’s conference in singing God Save The King for the first time after a tribute to “greatest monarch” Elizabeth II.
The Labour leader opened the gathering by tribute to the late Queen, held a minute’s silence in her memory and sang the National Anthem, backed by the shadow cabinet.
He appeared to have a tear in his eye at the end of the one-verse rendition.
Some Labour figures' fears that objectors could disrupt the event appeared not to materialise, as a witness in the hall in Liverpool said there was “not a murmur” of dissent.
Shadow Cabinet ministers were at the front to sing God Save The King
(Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)
The scene in the conference hall
(Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)
Jeremy Corbyn, who has lost the Labour whip in Parliament, had described the decision to sing the national anthem for the first time as “very odd”.
The former Labour leader told the BBC : “They've never done it before, there's never been any demand to do it.
“We don't as a country routinely go around singing the national anthem at every single event we go to.
“We don't sing in schools, we don't have the raising of the flag as they do in the USA and other places.
“We are not that sort of, what I would call, excessively nationalist.”
But his successor wanted to pay tribute to the Queen just days after her funeral, and draw a line under Tory claims that Labour is unpatriotic.
The former Labour leader told the BBC : “They've never done it before, there's never been any demand to do it.
“We don't as a country routinely go around singing the national anthem at every single event we go to.
“We don't sing in schools, we don't have the raising of the flag as they do in the USA and other places.
“We are not that sort of, what I would call, excessively nationalist.”
But his successor wanted to pay tribute to the Queen just days after her funeral, and draw a line under Tory claims that Labour is unpatriotic.
Keir Starmer sang alongside Angela Rayner
(Image: Daily Mirror/Andy Stenning
A source close to Keir Starmer said: “If you want proof the Labour Party has changed, that tribute to the Queen was it. What a moment.”
In a tribute to the late Queen, he said she was “this great country’s greatest monarch”
A source close to Keir Starmer said: “If you want proof the Labour Party has changed, that tribute to the Queen was it. What a moment.”
In a tribute to the late Queen, he said she was “this great country’s greatest monarch”
BROUGHT A TEAR TO HIS EYE
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer appeared to be emotional during the National Anthem at the annual Labour Party Conference.
The Labour leader opened his party's conference in Liverpool with a tribute to the Queen, who died aged 96 following a 70-year reign. It was followed by a minute's silence and the national anthem God Save the King.
Many in the hall were seen singing the anthem and applause was heard once it concluded. During the applause, Sir Keir could be seen emotional as the national anthem came to an end, appearing to be blinking away tears.
READ MORE: Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer's promise to give hope to struggling families
It comes following concerns expressed by some about the decision to sing the anthem. Jeremy Corbyn was said to have criticised the decision as he told the BBC: "They've never done it before, there's never been any demand to do it. We don't as a country routinely go around singing the national anthem at every single event we go to."
Sir Keir, in his tribute, said: "The late Queen Elizabeth II was this great country's greatest monarch. She created a special, personal relationship with all of us. A relationship based on service and devotion to our country. Even now, after the mourning period has passed, it still feels impossible to imagine a Britain without her."
The annual Labour Party conference is being held in Liverpool from today, September 25 until Wednesday, September 28 at the city's Arena and Convention Centre. Kickstarting the event is a speech by Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, followed by a meeting to discuss party reports, before a discussion on 'winning the General Election' takes place from 1.30pm.
SIR Keir Starmer appears emotional as national anthem sang at Labour Party Conference
The national anthem was sang at the conference, despite previous criticism
Aaliyah Rugg
The national anthem was sang at the conference, despite previous criticism
Aaliyah Rugg
Sky News
25 SEP 202
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer appeared to be emotional during the National Anthem at the annual Labour Party Conference.
The Labour leader opened his party's conference in Liverpool with a tribute to the Queen, who died aged 96 following a 70-year reign. It was followed by a minute's silence and the national anthem God Save the King.
Many in the hall were seen singing the anthem and applause was heard once it concluded. During the applause, Sir Keir could be seen emotional as the national anthem came to an end, appearing to be blinking away tears.
READ MORE: Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer's promise to give hope to struggling families
It comes following concerns expressed by some about the decision to sing the anthem. Jeremy Corbyn was said to have criticised the decision as he told the BBC: "They've never done it before, there's never been any demand to do it. We don't as a country routinely go around singing the national anthem at every single event we go to."
Sir Keir, in his tribute, said: "The late Queen Elizabeth II was this great country's greatest monarch. She created a special, personal relationship with all of us. A relationship based on service and devotion to our country. Even now, after the mourning period has passed, it still feels impossible to imagine a Britain without her."
The annual Labour Party conference is being held in Liverpool from today, September 25 until Wednesday, September 28 at the city's Arena and Convention Centre. Kickstarting the event is a speech by Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, followed by a meeting to discuss party reports, before a discussion on 'winning the General Election' takes place from 1.30pm.
Voices: Keir Starmer is standing by Labour’s authentic and popular monarchism
John Rentoul - 10 Sept
One of the more unfair charges against Jeremy Corbyn was that he disrespected the Queen because he wouldn’t sing the national anthem. He is presumably a republican in theory, but doesn’t seem to mind the monarchy in practice. He is heir to the Marxist tradition in the labour movement, epitomised by John Wheatley’s comment that he “saw no point in substituting a bourgeois president for a bourgeois king”.
GettyImages-1243093130.jpg© POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Wheatley’s view was quoted by Clement Attlee in an essay he wrote in 1959. Attlee had ceased to be prime minister, having lost the 1951 election, and Elizabeth had become Queen. Attlee modestly declared that he had “taken part in bringing about a number of changes in British society”, but “there is one feature of it which I have never felt any urge to abolish, and that is the monarchy”.
He was a proud monarchist, with a strong pragmatic argument for his view. “A president, however popular, is bound to have been chosen as representative of some political trend, and as such is open to attack from those of a different view,” he wrote. “A monarch is a kind of referee, although the occasions when he or she has to blow the whistle are nowadays very few.”
In fact, his traditionalism went deeper than that, as he showed when he accepted a hereditary earldom when he retired three years later. No other Labour leader was quite so royalist, although Tony Blair tried. Blair said he was “from the Disraeli school”, as he copied Disraeli’s flattery of Victoria by describing Elizabeth as “the best of British”. But Blair could never quite conceal his anti-establishment cast of mind, and the royal family could never quite forgive him for having saved it from the popular backlash after the death of Diana.
Keir Starmer’s tribute to the Queen in the Commons on Friday was just as striking for its traditionalism. He quoted Philip Larkin’s lines on the silver jubilee: “In times when nothing stood / But worsened, or grew strange, / There was one constant good: / She did not change.” That is a stark statement of explicit conservatism – not only that, but a statement by an avowed Conservative.
Never mind that Larkin was writing of a time when, under a Labour government, the country seemed to him to be going to the dogs, and that he regarded the Queen as one of the few fortifications against anarchy. Starmer may have wanted to suggest that there are echoes of the Seventies economic crisis today, and that the tables have turned between the parties.
In any case, he went on to use the Queen’s legacy to make his own statement of deep conservatism: “The country she came to symbolise is bigger than any one individual or any one institution. It is the sum total of all our history and all our endeavours, and it will endure.”
It is a sentiment that fits with Starmer’s patriotic theme, set out consistently since he took over from Corbyn. Corbyn was personally polite about the Queen, and his tribute to her was touchingly genuine. “I enjoyed discussing our families, gardens and jam-making with her,” he said. “May she rest in peace.”
One of his best moments in the 2017 election campaign was when Jeremy Paxman pointed out that there was nothing in Labour’s manifesto about getting rid of the monarchy. “Look, there’s nothing in there as we’re not going to do it,” Corbyn said. When he was pressed, he said: “It’s certainly not on my agenda and, do you know what, I had a very nice chat with the Queen.”
But Corbyn’s politics had become, by the time of the 2019 election, a problem with voters who regard themselves as patriotic, and particularly with the kind of working-class voters with whom Attlee instinctively associated. Those voters could no longer be deflected by chats about jam from Corbyn’s hostility to the establishment, including its conventional views on national security.
Hence the flags in Starmer’s videos and his photo opportunities with soldiers. Some of Starmer’s poses have been crude, but this week allowed him to seal his reputation as a monarchist in the Attlee tradition. He is fortunate in his new opponent, too. Whereas before this week, the Conservatives might have been tempted to attack him for that video in which he slyly boasts about being made a Queen’s Counsel, “which is odd since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy”, they can’t now.
Not because Starmer is now a KC, a King’s Counsel, but because Liz Truss, too, was an abolitionist in her youth. That balances the two main parties in a way that Attlee would have appreciated. He felt that there should be no difference between the parties on the rules of the game. He was right – if the monarchy evolves, that should happen without being driven by party politics. By returning Labour to its monarchist tradition, Starmer has ensured that politics can be fought on a level playing field
John Rentoul - 10 Sept
One of the more unfair charges against Jeremy Corbyn was that he disrespected the Queen because he wouldn’t sing the national anthem. He is presumably a republican in theory, but doesn’t seem to mind the monarchy in practice. He is heir to the Marxist tradition in the labour movement, epitomised by John Wheatley’s comment that he “saw no point in substituting a bourgeois president for a bourgeois king”.
GettyImages-1243093130.jpg© POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Wheatley’s view was quoted by Clement Attlee in an essay he wrote in 1959. Attlee had ceased to be prime minister, having lost the 1951 election, and Elizabeth had become Queen. Attlee modestly declared that he had “taken part in bringing about a number of changes in British society”, but “there is one feature of it which I have never felt any urge to abolish, and that is the monarchy”.
He was a proud monarchist, with a strong pragmatic argument for his view. “A president, however popular, is bound to have been chosen as representative of some political trend, and as such is open to attack from those of a different view,” he wrote. “A monarch is a kind of referee, although the occasions when he or she has to blow the whistle are nowadays very few.”
In fact, his traditionalism went deeper than that, as he showed when he accepted a hereditary earldom when he retired three years later. No other Labour leader was quite so royalist, although Tony Blair tried. Blair said he was “from the Disraeli school”, as he copied Disraeli’s flattery of Victoria by describing Elizabeth as “the best of British”. But Blair could never quite conceal his anti-establishment cast of mind, and the royal family could never quite forgive him for having saved it from the popular backlash after the death of Diana.
Watch in full: Sir Keir Starmer reacts to death of Queen Elizabeth II Duration 2:52 View on Watch
Keir Starmer’s tribute to the Queen in the Commons on Friday was just as striking for its traditionalism. He quoted Philip Larkin’s lines on the silver jubilee: “In times when nothing stood / But worsened, or grew strange, / There was one constant good: / She did not change.” That is a stark statement of explicit conservatism – not only that, but a statement by an avowed Conservative.
Never mind that Larkin was writing of a time when, under a Labour government, the country seemed to him to be going to the dogs, and that he regarded the Queen as one of the few fortifications against anarchy. Starmer may have wanted to suggest that there are echoes of the Seventies economic crisis today, and that the tables have turned between the parties.
In any case, he went on to use the Queen’s legacy to make his own statement of deep conservatism: “The country she came to symbolise is bigger than any one individual or any one institution. It is the sum total of all our history and all our endeavours, and it will endure.”
It is a sentiment that fits with Starmer’s patriotic theme, set out consistently since he took over from Corbyn. Corbyn was personally polite about the Queen, and his tribute to her was touchingly genuine. “I enjoyed discussing our families, gardens and jam-making with her,” he said. “May she rest in peace.”
One of his best moments in the 2017 election campaign was when Jeremy Paxman pointed out that there was nothing in Labour’s manifesto about getting rid of the monarchy. “Look, there’s nothing in there as we’re not going to do it,” Corbyn said. When he was pressed, he said: “It’s certainly not on my agenda and, do you know what, I had a very nice chat with the Queen.”
But Corbyn’s politics had become, by the time of the 2019 election, a problem with voters who regard themselves as patriotic, and particularly with the kind of working-class voters with whom Attlee instinctively associated. Those voters could no longer be deflected by chats about jam from Corbyn’s hostility to the establishment, including its conventional views on national security.
Hence the flags in Starmer’s videos and his photo opportunities with soldiers. Some of Starmer’s poses have been crude, but this week allowed him to seal his reputation as a monarchist in the Attlee tradition. He is fortunate in his new opponent, too. Whereas before this week, the Conservatives might have been tempted to attack him for that video in which he slyly boasts about being made a Queen’s Counsel, “which is odd since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy”, they can’t now.
Not because Starmer is now a KC, a King’s Counsel, but because Liz Truss, too, was an abolitionist in her youth. That balances the two main parties in a way that Attlee would have appreciated. He felt that there should be no difference between the parties on the rules of the game. He was right – if the monarchy evolves, that should happen without being driven by party politics. By returning Labour to its monarchist tradition, Starmer has ensured that politics can be fought on a level playing field
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