Sir Keir Starmer has said he believes his government can still “pull this round” as the Labour Party heads into its annual conference hoping to revive public support.

With opinion polls suggesting Labour trails Reform UK, and mounting speculation that Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham could launch a leadership challenge, the prime minister told the Times it was time to “roll up our sleeves and get on with it”.

He also renewed his attacks on Nigel Farage, saying his party would “tear this country apart”.

Sir Keir told the paper that this week’s conference in Liverpool would be an opportunity for Labour to present an alternative to “toxic divide and decline”.

His comments mark the latest in a recent string of fierce criticisms of Farage in newspaper interviews, which the Reform leader has hit back at.

Farage told the Telegraph that Sir Keir’s language “smacks, frankly, of total desperation” after the prime minister referred to Reform as an “enemy” in an interview with the Guardian.

“To call somebody in politics an enemy is language that is bordering on the inciteful,” he added.

Sir Keir continued the attacks as the conference got under way, describing Farage as “grubby” in an interview with the Sunday Mirror, adding that the Reform leader was “unpatriotic” for “pretending” he would fix problems that mattered to voters.

“Add to that that he spends more time grubbing around in America, trying to make money for himself than he does representing his constituents,” the prime minister said.

“He goes there not just to make money, but to talk our country down. The leader of a political party going to another country to talk his own country down. Grubby.”

Comparisons with Reform could be a theme of this conference, as Sir Keir tries to portray his party as a patriotic alternative to Reform, who continue to lead opinion polls.

Last week, Reform announced it will replace Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) with visas and force migrants to reapply every five years, if the party wins the next election. That includes hundreds of thousands of migrants currently in the UK.

Applicants would also have to meet certain criteria, including a higher salary threshold and standard of English. ILR is a key route to gaining British citizenship and allows people to claim benefits.

According to a YouGov poll published on Saturday, abolishing indefinite leave to remain divides the public, with 58% of Britons opposed to removing it from those who already hold it.

But more than 44% say they support ending ILR as a policy, while 43% are opposed to the idea.

During a visit to the office of newspaper Liverpool Echo, Sir Keir said: “These are people who have been in our country a long time, are contributing to our society, maybe working in, I don’t know, hospitals, schools, running businesses – our neighbours, and Reform says it wants to deport them in certain circumstances.

“I think it is a real sign of just how divisive they are and that their politics and their policies will tear this country apart.”

In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood suggested she wanted to look at changing the law to tighten rules around claiming ILR.

She said legal migration was a “good thing” and the UK had “always welcomed people who want to come and work here” – but that migrants should make a “contribution to their wider community”.

“So I am looking at how to make sure that settlement in our country – long term settlement, Indefinite Leave to Remain – is linked not just to the job you are doing, the salary you get, the taxes you pay, [but] also the wider contribution you are making to our communities,” she added.

Speaking to teenagers at the Liverpool Echo visit, Sir Keir also insisted the government would not legalise cannabis, and defended his plans to lower the voting age to 16 in general elections.

“It already happens in Scotland, already happens in Wales, and the sky didn’t fall in,” he said.

Ahead of the Labour conference, backbench MPs and unions renewed calls to end the two-child benefit cap.

Several MPs from Liverpool were among those who wrote to Sir Keir ahead of the conference insisting the cap “is one of the most significant drivers of child poverty in Britain today”.

Two MPs – former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and Apsana Begum – have had the whip restored, after a year-long ban for voting against the government on the cap.

McDonnell told the BBC: “If this is a signal the government is going to scrap the two-child limit I’m really pleased.”

The prime minister’s plans for a new digital ID system, revealed on Friday, will also likely face scrutiny at the conference.

Senior Labour figures are meanwhile expected to set out the details of a fresh tranche of “New Towns” at the event.