Sir Keir Starmer has expressed his pride in the saltire as he pledged to “renew Britain” in his keynote speech to the UK Labour conference.

The prime minister vowed that his party would fight elections in Scotland, Wales and England next year as “as patriots of our great nations”.

He also hailed the “talent of Glasgow and the Clyde” as he highlighted a £10bn deal for Norwegian warships to be built in Clyde shipyards.

And he took aim at Reform UK, the Conservatives and the SNP, who he said wanted “Britain to fail”.

The prime minister was aiming to set the tone ahead of Scottish and Welsh parliament elections in May 2026, which also coincide with English local elections.

Scottish Labour won a landslide in the 2024 general election, but recent polls suggest the party is in a fight with Reform to finish in a distant second to the SNP at next year’s Holyrood vote.

With Labour members and cabinet ministers in the audience waving their national flags, Sir Keir looked back to the semi-final of the European football championships in 1996, when England lost to Germany at Wembley.

Telling the audience he was at the game, the Labour leader said that it felt like England was “united by a flag that stood for all”.

He told the conference: “I’m not just proud of the union jack and the cross of St George, I’m also proud of the saltire, proud of the red dragon, proud of our union.”

The prime minister said the four nations of the UK had been “forged by the solidarity of working people”.

“So let’s fly all our flags, because they are our flags, they belong to us all and we will never surrender them,” he said.

Sir Keir vowed that Labour would fight next year’s elections “as patriots of our great nations”.

“That’s who we are,” he said, naming Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

“A campaign to renew Wales, renew Scotland and renew Britain,” Sir Keir added.

The comments follow a summer in which saltires and union flags have been flown at anti-immigration protests and hung from lampposts in Scotland, mirroring a similar trend south of the border.

Sir Keir said patriotism was about “love and pride” and serving the “common good”.

He questioned whether Labour’s opponent’s, naming Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, “really want to fix our problems and renew Britain”.

He added: “Whether it’s the SNP, the extremes of the left, or Reform and the Tories. Now, do they actually want Britain to fail?

“I think we know the answer to that question.”

The prime minister said Labour must “go into that battle armed” with both “condemnation” and “action”.

He said his government would meet the “reasonable” demands of “working people” for a functioning economy, NHS and and “secure borders”.

Sir Keir condemned “thuggery” and those that had incited “racist violence and hatred”.

He said: “I do think the politics of grievance is the biggest threat we face.

“Because it attacks who we are.”

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn MP said: “This speech was billed as the moment Keir Starmer would outline the story of his government, but the truth is that people already know the story of this Labour government.

“It’s the story of the removal of the winter fuel payment from pensioners, the attack on support for the disabled and the massive hike in national insurance for small businesses.”

He added: “Scots would find the prime minister’s supposed love for our saltire a bit more believable if Westminster stopped denying our democratic right to choose a future beyond the doom loop of broken, Brexit Britain.”

The Labour leader has dismissed questions about a democratic mandate for a second referendum, saying he cannot imagine another vote taking place during his time as prime minister.

Farage said Sir Keir was “unfit” to be prime minister and claimed his criticism of Reform UK would “incite and encourage the radical left”.

He said the conference speech was “a desperate last throw of the dice from a prime minister who is in deep trouble”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “The prime minister could have used his speech to own up to the mistakes he’s made on the economy, admit the country was living beyond its means and set out a plan to avoid further punishing tax hikes this autumn, but he did not.”