Sir Keir Starmer heckled on stage by green protesters who demand ‘no more U-turns’ from Labour leader

Sir Keir Starmer was heckled on stage by green protesters as he announced his party’s plans to overhaul education. The two students who belong to campaign group Green New Deal Rising were invited on stage to stand behind the Labour leader.

Sir Keir was midway through delivering his party’s fifth and final mission for government to a crowd in Gillingham when a man and a woman unfurled a banner saying: “No more U-turns - green new deal now.”

One of the activists said: “We need a new green deal right now.” While another asked Sir Keir “Which side are the Labour Party on?” Responding to the students, Sir Keir instructed them to let him finish the speech, adding: “I’ll come and talk to you about it.”

Shortly after the green protesters were escorted out the building by security guards, Sir Keir said to the room: “I think they might have missed the fact that the last mission I launched was on clean power by 2030, which is the single most effective way to get the green future that they and many others want.”

One of the students, Dieudonne Bila, said she “desperately wants to see a future government committed to protecting people here and all over the world from the climate crisis”

The Labour leader’s mission statement for education included boosting funding for primary schools paid for by removing tax breaks on private schools and updating the “outdated” curriculum.