No mention of Northern Ireland in Sir Keir Starmer's keynote Labour conference speech - as he focuses on UK-wide issues

​The Prime Minister has already made two visits to Belfast during his tenure, but there were no big plans or announcements as he addressed his party conference for the first time in office.

The Labour leader told Labour Party members gathered in Liverpool to take pride in their general election victory.

“Take pride that Labour won in every single region of England. Take pride that Labour won in Wales. Take pride that Labour won in Scotland” he said.

Labour refuses to allow members here to stand for election, instead directing people to its nationalist sister party, the SDLP. Their two MPs sit on the government benches at Westminster.

Other than referencing Labour’s election results there, Wales didn’t get a specific mention in the national address either. The country is a Labour heartland, and it has led the devolved government there since its inception.

Scotland did, however, get a mention – because it is central to the government’s green energy plans – and Labour hopes to make big inroads into the SNP’s vote in the next Holyrood election.

Keir Starmer told the conference: “We said GB Energy – our publicly-owned national champion, the vehicle that will drive forward our mission on clean energy – we said it belonged in Scotland.

“And it does. But the truth is, it could only really ever be based in one place in Scotland.

“So today I can confirm that the future of British energy will be powered, as it has been for decades by the talent and skills of the working people in the Granite City with GB Energy based in Aberdeen”.

Since taking power, Labour has faced constant questioning over whether it would fund the redevelopment of Casement Park – something it ultimately decided against. It did grant an inquest into the 1989 murder of solicitor Pat Finucane – the cost of which has been questioned by unionists, who also accused the government of creating a hierarchy of victims.