It is fair to say that for much of his first year as premier, Sir Keir Starmer, perhaps out of force of habit, or with an element of wishful thinking, tended to downplay the threat posed by Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
Instead, he concentrated his attacks on the recently defeated Conservatives, then still the official opposition. No longer. In the uncertain hands of Kemi Badenoch, the party that is traditionally the principal rival to Labour now lies third in the opinion polls, registers about the same support as the Liberal Democrats, and is hardly more relevant. It is Nigel Farage, and not for the first time, who is mobilising grievance for political gain, stirring the hatred, and hawking yet another false manifesto.
The prime minister is therefore right to paint the new political landscape in bold, clear colours. It is indeed, as he puts it, a “fight that goes to the soul of our future” – and, unlike some around him, he is definitely up for that fight. That also goes for Labour’s querulous internal critics, the forces that would drag them back to the electoral wilderness. If Labour is engaged in a fight for the soul of the nation, as it should be, then Sir Keir is also up for the fight for the soul of his party and ready to make the speech of his political life this week. Indeed, we may soon see more of the kind of fight and ruthlessness from this leader that helped him bring his party back from the dead after the disaster of the 2019 election.
Tony Blair used to say of Labour that “we’re at our best when at our boldest”. That is surely what Sir Keir needs to be this week and to go on the attack. He has already called out as “immoral” and “racist” Reform UK’s plan to deport people who’ve lived, worked and brought up families in the UK perfectly legally with “settled status”. Such a policy would indeed “tear Britain apart”, as the prime minister says, and betray not only the promises given by the state in good faith to the blameless victims but also the very values the British pride themselves on. These people are colleagues, friends, neighbours, and they do not deserve such horrendous treatment, nor to live in fear of it. Nor would it make the UK better off: far from it.
Sir Keir, a decent and principled leader, is asking the country to back him and his vision of a proud, diverse, tolerant place where people live and let live against the chaotic, impoverished and racist failed state that Mr Farage would usher in.
Sir Keir has used strong language against his most formidable current opponents, but that has had to be done precisely because the next election will be no ordinary, routine choice between Labour and the Tories, but a much starker, fundamental one. Everything that Mr Farage and his colleagues say points to a darker and more authoritarian future, one where freedoms and rights taken too easily for granted will be suppressed, where people who’ve committed no crime can be deported without due process, and where the economy would be devastated. As Sir Ed Davey warned last week, the British people surely do not want Trump’s America to become Farage’s Britain.
Labour’s electoral task is made more complicated by the fact that it has actually been losing more of its 2024 support to the resurgent Greens and the Liberal Democrats as it has to Mr Farage’s latest political vehicle. Cue much anguished debate about whether government policy and Labour’s language should tack more to the “progressive” Left, or more to the Right. Such tactical arguments have their place, but much more powerful to win back all kinds of support would simply be, to use the cliche, “delivery”. Voters do not identify themselves in the abstruse terminology of political science, but in terms of their interests and those of the country. It’s about what they want to see.
Although he correctly condemned Reform’s policies as racist, Sir Keir recognises the obvious truth that, on current readings, the 30 per cent of the voters who say they would vote Reform are not themselves “racist”, do not regard themselves as such, and resent being labelled “far right” and the like. They would heartily agree with Sir Keir that they are “frustrated” about the cost of living, especially housing, the state of their communities, about unresponsive public services, the migration crisis and the state of the environment. Delivery on those matters far more than rhetoric, and that immediately puts a particular burden on two of Sir Keir’s senior colleagues – the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the new home secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
At the coming Budget in November, Ms Reeves must do much more than merely avoid the grave errors that she made in her first 14 months in office, and in particular, has to signal a return to the task of reforming social security. Even if she wanted to, she could not put the public finances on a sustainable footing only with more tax hikes and higher borrowing. She needs to convince markets and voters that there is some sense of direction in her management of the economy.
Ms Mahmood also faces a great challenge – she has rapidly become not only a meteor firing across the political firmament, but critical to the future of the government. She has said she will “do whatever it takes” to “stop the boats”, clear the claims backlog, reform the indefinite leave to remain system, and empty the so-called asylum hotels, and quickly. Frankly, she has no alternative if they want to prevent the ultimate catastrophe of a Reform administration. Her “winter of action” against shoplifting and anti-social behaviour will be very welcome – the state on the side of the people.
The very worst thing Labour could do now is to abandon the fight against the extremists in Reform, and instead emerge on a reckless, self-indulgent and senseless civil war, with the mayor of Manchester at the head of some pointless coup. That is another bold message the party leadership has to convey to the delegates. A “soft Left” revolution is certainly not what the country voted for in July 2024, and neither did it vote to put Andy Burnham into No 10 to experiment with the amorphous doctrine he terms “Manchesterism”.
Alan Johnson, a former Labour cabinet minister and one-time subject of the same panicky speculation that currently attaches to Mr Burnham, advises him to put an end to these distractions by finding a television camera, parking himself in front of it, and declaring he has no intention of challenging the prime minister for his job. For his part, Sir Keir needs to remind his party that there is no vacancy, and that every fibre of their being has to be turned on the real enemy – the extremist policies and flawed personalities of Reform UK.
