IN DEPTH
Labour asks if Keir Starmer is the problem as Reform closes in
The prime minister is facing claims that he is out of touch with voters but his party believes he can take on the populists by emphasising his working-class roots
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-asks-if-keir-starmer-is-the-problem-as-reform-closes-in-m6vpjlp27
Until recently, the message emanating from No 10 has been that Reform poses the biggest threat to the Tories. That if Labour gets it right on delivery, the right will effectively eat itself.
That thinking is changing, with Sir Keir Starmer and his most senior ministers concerned about Nigel Farage and his nascent party. The question of who will be the real opposition come 2029 is being asked with increasing urgency in Downing Street.
“At the next election we will be the incumbent, and some version of the populist right will be the challenger,” is how Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, will put it in a speech next week. “In almost every developed country, a majority of voters think their country is heading in the wrong direction and want change.
“We cannot allow the battle to be between the disruptors of opposition and the disrupted of incumbency. We too have to be disruptors.”
With that in mind senior figures in No 10 have begun drawing up a detailed strategy for taking on Reform UK. It suggests that its voters — and those leaning towards it — are so disaffected that they have stopped listening to the main parties entirely.
No 10 acknowledges that there is no silver bullet. However, they point to the fact that the concerns of those backing Reform tally with the very problems Labour is attempting to address — the cost of living, the state of the NHS, immigration and a general state of decline.
The ultimate strategy is to “govern away” those concerns.
But Labour also wants to go for the jugular with Farage. It is planning a three-pronged approach — depicting Farage as a “cheerleader” for President Putin, highlighting his support for Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget and bringing up previous comments about the role of the private sector in the NHS. Labour has created several attack adverts based on this theme.
Labour MPs will also be told to use their “incumbency bias” to become champions for their constituents in an effort to stave off the threat posed by Reform. However, there are increasing concerns in Labour that the man in No 10 himself may be part of the problem, with voters looking to Reform in part because they dislike Starmer so much.
One senior Labour source said that there was evidence that the “two-tier Keir” attack by Farage and Elon Musk — a reference to claims that far-right protesters are treated more harshly than minority groups — has stuck with some voters. Others suggest he is seen as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters.
Starmer is already the least popular political leader in Britain, with YouGov polling giving him a net favourability rating of minus 41 earlier last month, lower than Farage. Among those who support Reform, 96 per cent have formed an unfavourable view of Starmer, and 93 per cent of those who intend to vote Tory have an unfavourable opinion. A fifth of Labour voters have formed an unfavourable view of him.
This is rejected by other senior figures in Labour, who believe the prime minister can take on the populists by emphasising his working-class roots. They say that far from being a liability he will lead the attack.
What is undeniable is that Reform is drawing strength from disaffection with the main parties, which polling shows is a bigger draw for voters than immigration. YouGov found that 19 per cent of those thinking of voting Reform put “it’s not Labour or the Conservatives” or “another party needs a go” as their main reason. Farage is cited by only 4 per cent of possible Reform voters.
Farage welcomes Labour’s attacks: “We take the view that they are all the same. They’ve all got a record of failure on mass migration, on illegal migration, on net zero. If they think they can govern away their problems they are wrong.” He says he wants the NHS to remain free at point of use but is “open-minded” about how it should be funded. “They can take selective quotes but it’s not going to help them,” he said.
The turbulence of Starmer’s first six months in government did not help, with confusion about core messaging and purpose of the new administration.
This week represented an attempt to change that, with Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, leading the charge. She gave a speech which, in contrast to the doom and gloom that dominated Labour’s first six months in power, was almost relentlessly positive.
Labour, she said, will pursue growth at all costs. She made a flurry of announcements, including on expanding Heathrow, relaxing planning rules and effectively a declaration of war on newts and bats. She used an interview with The Times to suggest that there could be as many as six interest rate cuts by the middle of next year. The Bank of England is widely expected to cut interest rates next week to stimulate the economy.
But just as Reeves makes her damascene conversion to full-blooded boosterism, what is to come looks grim. Economic growth remains anaemic and on March 26 she is expected to have to announce a deep round of spending cuts in response to downgrades in official forecasts. Reeves notably refuses to say whether people will be better off by the end of the year, in part because she cannot — it is too dependent on external factors. The hangover from the budget, with its huge package of tax rises, shows no sign of fading.
The decision by AstraZeneca to pull a proposed £450 million investment in Merseyside — just days after Reeves hailed it as one of Britain’s great companies — has not helped.
Steve Reed, the environment secretary, told a conference in London last weekend that Labour needed to do better. “Politics is the art of competitive storytelling because it’s stories that connect with people emotionally, not statistics and not strategies,” he said. “So we have to tell a story about Britain, about what it can become, and show people their place in it, and their community’s place and their family’s place in it. Now we need to get that story right.
“We need to get it better than it has been over the last six months. But you know, we’ve all been very, very distracted for the right reasons, moving into departments, setting these strategies in place, starting to make that change happen. We need to remember we have to communicate it well.”
People in Labour, he said, had a habit of talking about “grand strategies” but did not focus enough on what it meant for people. For a government that has announced six milestones, five missions, three foundations and six first steps the confusion is perhaps unsurprising. “We won’t do it if we talk to people about what we’re achieving in ways that go over their head,” Reed said.
“Language matters… It’s not just doing the right things, it’s talking about it in language people understand. For me, that’s the language you’d use across a coffee shop table or the kitchen table or the pub with your mates. It’s not some of the language that all of us fall into when we’re giving political speeches.”
