Lucy Powell told a hustings at Labour conference: “The future of our democracy is at the precipice, and it falls on our shoulders as the Labour Party, we’ve always stood up against division and hate, but also as the party of Government, to get this right and to really reunite the country, and as the challenge could be just couldn’t be greater, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

“And this is about a lot more than winning elections. This is about winning the hearts and minds, the soul of our country.”

Lucy Powell said her son had “struggled” with her being part of the Labour Government because “we’ve not got some of the politics right”.

The deputy leadership contender told a hustings at the party conference: “We are not attracting young people to our movement in the way that we want, that we should.

“I’ve got a 21-year-old son and, to be honest with you, him and his friends have really struggled with me actually being in the Labour Government these last 15 months.

“Because we’ve not got some of the politics right to enthuse young people, to make them see that a Labour Government, the Labour Party, is not just working on their behalf, but that we can make the change that they want to see.”

Bridget Phillipson said she could use her role in Government to “really get things done” like Angela Rayner if she were deputy Labour leader.

The Education Secretary told a hustings at the party’s annual conference: “I also think that when you look at the work that Angela Rayner did, it was incredibly effective, because she was able to be that voice right across our movement and across our socialist societies and our party, and she did combine that big job in Government and really got things done, made members voices heard, our trade union voices heard, and our affiliates heard as well.”

She said she would do that “day in, day out”.

Labour needs to be as “ruthless” in fighting the Greens as it is in fighting Reform UK, Bridget Phillipson has said.

The Labour deputy leadership hopeful told a hustings at the party conference in Liverpool: “What we have to do is expose the Greens in particular for who they are.

“So they say, on the one hand, that climate change is the biggest challenge we face – and climate change is an enormous challenge, but a real opportunity to create some brilliant jobs.

“But then what do they do? They oppose infrastructure projects. They oppose the investment that will make a huge difference to our communities and to tackling climate change.

“So we’ve got to be as ruthless in taking the fight to them as we are in taking the fight to Reform.

“Because we are the party that is on the side of working people, delivering for them.”

Her opponent, Lucy Powell, said Labour needed to rebuild a “progressive alliance” and set a “bold vision of the future” in order to counter the threat from the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

Labour must “seize the political megaphone” which it has “ceded too long” in recent months, deputy leadership hopeful Lucy Powell has said.

The Manchester Central MP told a deputy leadership hustings at the party’s conference: “Being tactical about it and trying to out-Reform Reform is not going to help us in those elections next May.

“And that’s what I’ve been saying this week, we’ve got to seize back the political megaphone in this country, because let’s be honest, we’ve ceded it too long in recent months.

“We’ve got to set the agenda about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, who we’re standing up for and I’m going to be working right across the country to make sure that we win in those elections next year.”

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who is standing against Ms Powell said she would make sure she brought “that members’ voice, that campaigning voice, right into Government at the heart and soul of Labour, at the Cabinet table, getting things done.”

Labour’s annual conference was a chance for Keir Starmer and his team to show the nation what they’ve achieved after winning last year’s general election, and prove they still have a chance of winning the next one.

It was never going to be easy, given Labour’s dismal poll ratings which show Reform well ahead. But Labour managed to make a difficult situation worse.

Read the full analysis on Labour’s five biggest conference blunders here.

Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice insisted his party would reverse a fracking ban after Ed Miliband’s conference speech.

He wrote on X: “Ed Miliband negligently announces total ban on valuable shale gas opportunities.

“We ⁦Reform UK⁩ will immediately reverse this when we win power.”

Shabana Mahmood described the Labour Party as a “dysfunctional” family, as she closed the conference.

The Home Secretary said: “We are a family – a little dysfunctional at times perhaps, but a family just the same.”

Ed Miliband has called for X chief Elon Musk to “get the hell out of our politics”.

The Energy Secretary claimed Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was part of a “global network that wants to destroy the ties that bind our communities and our way of life”.

In his Labour conference speech, he said: “I can sum up the threat for you in two words: Elon Musk.”

Mr Miliband said: “He thinks he can tell us how to run Britain.

“Conference, we have a message for Elon Musk: Get the hell out of our politics and our country.”

Ed Miliband has vowed to “ban fracking” as he launched a fresh attack on Reform UK.

The Energy Secretary said “Farage and his cronies” were “job-destroying, bill-raising, poverty-driving, science-denying, Putin-appeasing, young-people betraying bunch of ideological extremists”.

He told Labour’s conference: “And we know where they want to go next because they have told us – fracking. Fracking in your communities. Fracking will not take a penny off bills. It will not create long-term sustainable jobs.

“It will trash our climate commitments, and it is dangerous and deeply harmful to our natural environment.

“Friends, the good news is that communities have fought back and won this fight before and will do so again.”

Mr Miliband claimed “the Tories tried to overturn the fracking ban” and added campaigners had “sent those frackers packing”.

He continued: “I say, let’s ban fracking and vow to send this bunch of frackers packing, too.”

Ed Miliband accused Reform UK of waging “all-out war on future generations”.

The Energy Secretary told the Labour Party conference: “Reform would wreck everything we are doing.

“They’ve said they would ‘wage war’ on clean energy. A culture war they are importing from the United States, driven by the rich and powerful interests who fund them.

“Let’s spell out what Reform’s war means: It’s a war on the workers at the Siemens wind turbine factory in Hull; it’s a war on the construction workers building carbon capture and storage in Teesside; it’s a war on the workers at the new cable factory in Scotland; and a war on the working people of Britain.

He added: “Theirs is an all-out war on future generations too.

“I’m incredibly proud of British climate leadership. I’m incredibly proud of Labour climate leadership.

“And I say Reform’s war on the future would betray every young person in our country and every person yet to be born.”

Sir Keir Starmer gave an “absolute barnstormer” of a conference address on Tuesday, Ed Miliband has said.

Speaking on the final day of his party’s Liverpool conference, the Energy Secretary and former Labour leader said: “I know what pressure you face in giving the leader’s speech at Labour Party conference.”

To applause, Mr Miliband urged delegates to “raise the roof for Keir Starmer and the brilliant speech he gave”.

A new poll by More in Common gives Reform UK a 10-point lead on 30%, up two points from the week before.

Labour and the Tories are tied on 20%, with Sir Keir Starmer’s party down five points.

The survey of 2,012 people was carried out from September 26-29.

Andrew Neil ripped into Sir Keir Starmer for blaming the small boats crisis on Brexit.

In a post on X, the veteran broadcaster said: “Keir Starmer claims Nigel Farage is to blame for the boat people because Brexit took us out of the Dublin Convention (in 2020), which allowed us to return asylum seekers to the EU countries from whence they came.

“The PM is either ignorant of the facts — or knowingly lying. Neither is a good look.

“The Dublin Convention was a two-way street for asylum seekers. Yes, we could try to return them. But others could also be returned to us.

“As a result the Dublin Agreement actually made us a net recipient of asylum seekers.

“Take 2018. We made 5,500 requests for asylum seekers to be returned. Only 209 transfers were agreed. In the same year, under the same convention we accepted 1,215 asylum seekers.

“So we were net recipients by over 1,000. The Dublin Convention did nothing to make it easier to return asylum seekers.

“Nearly all politicians are cavalier with the truth when it suits them. But Starmer is taking this to a new level.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden has defended Labour’s attacks on Reform UK.

He said: “Politics is a fight, and we’re in a fight. We’re in a big fight for the future direction of the country.

“And if we hadn’t addressed what that fight is, I think people would have wondered what planet we were on when we came in here.

“So we make no apologies for examining our opponent. Being ahead in the polls brings with it scrutiny of your policies, and that goes with the territory.

“If your policy is to say to people – who’ve been in the country legally, worked here legally, paid tax here legally, made a huge contribution to the country – that ‘we’re going to tear up your settled status and we may deport you’, that’s one of the most un-British things I can think of to do.

“The British way is not to break your word and break your promise. And scrutiny of Reform policies like that will go with the territory of having a prominent position in the polls, and they’d better get used to it.”

Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice criticised Sir Keir Starmer for his attacks on Nigel Farage.

In a post on X, Mr Tice said: “Starmer is all out of ideas so is lashing out in a vicious coordinated way with his cabinet colleagues.

“He’s unleashed a deliberate incitement of violence against Nigel Farage and Reform activists.

“We thought long and hard about sharing this, but believe it is in the public interest that they know:

“This disgusting attack comes just 2 weeks after the Government slashed Nigel’s security by 75%. Is this a coincidence?

“Thankfully we have donors who have stepped in to shore up the security so that Nigel is still well protected.

“For the Govt to behave like this just a fortnight after the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk is shocking.

“The PM knows exactly what he is doing with this campaign of incitement to violence against Nigel. He has given licence to Antifa and the far left.

“Regardless of your politics, we urge all right thinking people in this country to stand with Nigel against this incitement.”

Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf has claimed Nigel Farage had his security cut by three-quarters in the last fortnight by the Parliamentary Security Department.

Mr Yusuf told Times Radio: “Two weeks ago, the authorities cut Nigel’s security detail by 75%, and then we have seen the most extraordinary 48 hours of demonisation, and I’m going to say it again, incitement to violence against the man who is the bookmakers’ favourite to be the next prime minister.”

He said donors had stepped up to cover the drop in protection.

He said: “The claim I’m making is exactly what has happened, which is that it is the Parliamentary Security Department that is responsible for security in both houses that frankly for what I can tell, for inexplicable reasons, has decided to materially downgrade Nigel Farage’s security. Those are the facts of the matter.”

Sir Keir Starmer said the Government will revisit how international law is interpreted as it attempts to tackle the small boats crisis.

The Prime Minister said the way UK courts interpret international laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights needs to be re-examined.

He told the BBC: “We need to look again at the interpretation of some of these provisions, not tear them down.”

Sir Keir Starmer branded small boats crossing the Channel as “Farage Boats” as he took a swipe at Brexit.

The Prime Minister said the Government was having to recover lost ground over returns caused by leaving the European Union.

He insisted that Nigel Farage had been “wrong” during the Brexit referendum in 2016 that it would make no difference to migration policy if the UK voted leave.

Under the Dublin Convention which applies in the EU, there is a provision to return asylum seekers to the first member state they arrived in.

Sir Keir acknowledged the returns agreement with France had only seen small numbers deported, but said it had been important to prove the policy worked.

He told GB News: “We’ve now done that, but now we need to ramp that up. I would gently point out to Nigel Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU and he told the country it would make no difference if we left. He was wrong about that.

“These are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the channel.”

Sir Keir Starmer refused to answer three times whether US President Donald Trump’s Sharia Law comments had been racist.

He told the BBC: “I’m not going to start down the road of discussing whether things said by others are racist or not.”

He added: “I have been really clear that the idea that in London we’re introducing Sharia law is rubbish.”

Nigel Farage and his supporters are not “racist”, the Prime Minister has said, despite insisting that Reform UK’s immigration policy is.

He told Sky’s Beth Rigby: “No, nor do I think Reform voters are racist.

“They’re concerned about things like our borders, they’re frustrated about the pace of change.

“I’m not for a moment suggesting that they are racist.”

He insisted he had been talking about a “particular policy”, claiming Reform’s plans would see migrants who live in the UK lawfully deported, saying “that to me would tear our country apart”.

It is the last day of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.

There will be speeches from Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

There will then be deputy leadership hustings with former House of Commons leader Lucy Powell facing off against Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.