Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to target Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as “the real opposition” was a seismic political choice, elevating the right-wing populist party from outsiders to the status of Britain’s potential government-in-waiting.
The controversial move, executed in a speech last month, has divided opinion, with some Labour strategists warning that Starmer has taken a big risk by lending credibility to Farage and his start-up party.
“Keep it coming Keir,” Farage told the Financial Times. “We’re laughing our socks off.” But Starmer’s allies insist the strategy will help stall the Farage bandwagon and that Labour will have the last laugh.
Starmer disclosed his plan to tackle Farage head-on in a text message last month to Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, after learning the Reform leader was planning a bold pitch for Labour votes in a speech on May 27.
Two days after Farage’s démarche — in which the Reform leader vowed to be the champion of “working people” — Starmer declared in a speech in St Helens that the new choice for voters was between Labour and the “fantasy economics” of Reform.
“The Conservative party has run out of road,” Starmer said, referring to arguably the world’s most successful political party. “Their project is faltering. They’re in the decline. They’re sliding into the abyss.”
The latest YouGov opinion poll put Reform on 27, Labour on 24, the Tories on 17 and Liberal Democrats on 15.
The prime minister’s decision to dismiss Kemi Badenoch’s struggling party of 120 MPs and to train his fire on Reform UK, which currently has just five MPs, was driven by a combination of necessity and political calculation.
“Reform won the local elections,” said one ally of Starmer, referring to Farage’s sweeping victories in local elections in England last month. “They are ahead in the polls. The evidence is that they are the most likely opponents at the next general election.”
Pat McFadden, the cabinet office minister, likes to use a sports analogy to describe the position. One Labour MP said: “Pat always says you have to play the team in front of you, not the team you want to play against.”
But Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former media chief, said there were risks in going head-to-head with Farage, even if it was vital to develop a strategy that exposed Reform’s flaws.
“The risk is that it helps elevate Farage and fuel a right-wing media obsession that he, rather than the government, is getting to grips with the country’s challenges,” he said.
One Labour strategist said that attacking Farage was “fine” as a tactic, but should be left to the party’s backbench MPs, not the prime minister. “I’m just not sure Keir Starmer should be doing it,” he said.
But Starmer’s allies note that Farage, who claims that his 1.3mn TikTok followers are more than all the other 649 MPs’ followers combined, could hardly enjoy a higher profile than he has already.
One said: “Farage is well known already. The idea you can take energy away by ignoring them would be a mistake. You end up giving them a free ride.”
Sir John Curtice, veteran elections expert, agreed. “Nigel Farage is being given credibility by the opinion polls anyway,” he said. “That horse is out of the stable.”
Starmer and his team decided to attack Reform now, rather than waiting four years until the election, to test out Farage’s weaknesses and try to exploit internal tensions.
The prime minister’s focus was on claiming that Farage was essentially Liz Truss in disguise, with fanciful tax and spend policies that would prove as costly for Britain as the former Tory prime minister’s 2022 mini-Budget.
Starmer will step up the attacks in coming weeks, claiming Farage’s promise to take a “Doge” approach to cutting waste in Reform-run councils and his rejection of net zero policies would lead to heavy job losses.
But Labour MPs, especially those in working class areas of the north and midlands, do not underestimate Farage, who is best known as the campaigner behind Brexit.
“He’s a political genius,” said one Labour MP. “Reform are doing well because they reflect the legitimate concerns that ordinary people have.”
Starmer’s team agree that stopping Reform will require Labour to make people better off. “That’s the biggest challenge we have,” said one Downing Street official. Improving the NHS and stopping small boat crossings by irregular migrants are next in the prime minister’s list of priorities.
But what about the suggestion that Starmer is building up Reform as a tactic to split the vote on the right of British politics between Farage and Badenoch’s parties, an outcome that would allow Labour to come through the middle as in last year’s election?
“I can see why people might think that,” smiled the Labour strategist. “But the Conservatives have checked out.” Curtice notes that at the last election Reform’s 15 per cent vote share was “good news” for Labour, taking key votes from the Tories and helping Starmer to a landslide victory.
But he says that a Reform vote of 30 per cent would not look so good for Starmer as Farage made advances across the country. At the last election Reform came second in 98 seats of which 89 were won by Labour.
While splitting the vote on the right is a clear part of Starmer’s calculation, there is another potential gain for Labour in framing the next election as a choice between the managerial prime minister and the freewheeling Farage.
While opinion polls give Reform a consistent lead over Labour, when YouGov asked voters to choose between Starmer and Farage as prime minister, Starmer came out on top by 44 to 29.
One Labour MPs said that Farage might seem popular but — as with leftwing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 general election — voters did not want him walking into Downing Street.
“Farage is Marmite — you love or hate him,” the MP said. Another Labour MP said if the election was framed as a two-horse race, it might create a “stop Farage” coalition, encouraging left-leaning voters to stick with Labour, rather than backing the Liberal Democrats or Greens.
Starmer’s Reform strategy — driven partly by political reality, partly by political calculation — is only just beginning. But most believe it will only work if the Labour government deals with the wellspring of voter discontent.
Luke Tryl, director of the More in Common think-tank, said: “Reform is benefiting from a ‘roll the dice’ mentality. Lots of people don’t care if they are a risk because what they have at the moment isn’t working.”
Data visualisation by Jonathan Vincent
