Labour needs to take back control from the populist right
Parroting Reform UK on immigration and obsessed with growth, Keir Starmer’s government is seeing support evaporate — but it doesn’t have to be that way
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“Things will get worse before they get better,” declared Prime Minister Keir Starmer in an address to the nation in August 2024. He wasn’t lying about the first part and the jury is out on the second. Labour’s net approval rating now stands at -54%. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, meanwhile, is topping the polls at 27%, according to recent YouGov figures.
The warning signs were already there. In what has been termed a loveless landslide, Labour secured two-thirds of the 650 House of Commons seats at the 2024 general election, despite securing less than 34% of the vote — the lowest vote share for any majority government in British postwar history. And, with voter turnout at just 59.9% — the second-lowest since the second world war — the apathy of the electorate was clear.
With its rightwing populist rhetoric, Reform UK is tapping into widespread disillusionment. Despite winning just five Commons seats, according to research by Cavendish Consulting the party receives half of all MP engagement on X. It probably doesn’t hurt that the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, is a fan.
From Starmer’s freebies scandal to the winter fuel cuts fiasco, the government has handed plenty of ammunition to a growing rightwing insurgency. And now, with talk of further cuts to public services and paltry pay rises for public sector workers, its woes are only set to intensify.
So what can Labour do to win public confidence and how did the party end up in this situation in the first place? To understand Labour’s precarious position, it’s worth getting a grip on its 2024 electoral base. In a broad but shallow coalition, disillusioned Tories who wanted to stick two fingers up to Rishi Sunak and his predecessors joined progressives who held their noses and cast their ballots for the least worst option, and Labour stalwarts, a decent number of whom also happened to back Brexit and could easily be lost to Reform.
The one thing these groups have in common is that none of them are enthusiastic in their support of Starmer or Labour’s vision — or lack thereof — for the country. While they do exist, the number of voters eager to rally around the party leader is small. That’s largely because Labour’s general tone offers little to get excited about. While Blairism told the nation that “things can only get better” and millions seemed to believe it, Starmerism’s slogan of “change” has rung hollow.
Traditional loyalties were already coming undone before the 2024 election, with a significant number of Muslim and progressive voters in urban areas opting for the Greens or independent candidates. According to a January YouGov poll, of those who did vote Labour in 2024, 7% have switched to the Liberal Democrats, 6% to the Greens, 5% to Reform, 4% to the Conservatives and 17% said they don’t know how they’d vote next time around. In short, the party is losing votes left, right and centre.
Labour’s response has been to follow the anti-immigration line of Reform. While Starmer stands at the dispatch box accusing the Tories of presiding over an open border experiment, his party has posted online ads with Reform-style branding, boasting about deportation numbers.
That strategy is bound to fail. Why would voters settle for Reform-lite when they can back the real deal? Not only will Labour fail to win over voters who may swing to Reform, it will further alienate those who could shift their support to the Lib Dems, the Greens or independents.
In addition to its anti-immigration stance, rather than attempting to deliver the tangible improvements to peoples’ lives demanded by voters across the political map, Labour has fixated upon abstract concepts such as growth. According to another YouGov poll, the top three reasons for 2024 Labour voters abandoning the party are cuts to the winter fuel payment, failure to reduce the cost of living and failure to improve public services.
To Starmer and the technocrats at the top of the Labour party, populism is a dirty word. But that political approach need not be the sole preserve of the right. A truly universal programme of populism could unite people across race and religion on the issues that concern us all: money in our pockets, roofs over our heads and food on our tables. It could also expose the rightwing charlatans who focus more on bashing Muslims and immigrants than they do on making meaningful, positive change.
The issue of workers’ rights alone exposes fundamental flaws in Reform’s policy agenda. While Reform MPs voted against the employment rights bill at every stage, the majority of the party’s voters support many of the policies it contained. A full 65% of 2024 Reform voters want a ban on zero-hours contracts. In Farage’s Clacton seat that figure goes up to 70%, along with support for day-one sick pay. There is similar backing for both policies in Reform’s Ashfield, Boston and Skegness, and Great Yarmouth seats.
From failing public services to private companies raking in fortunes at our expense, there are many issues that Labour could focus on fixing. Just this week, a report by Citizens Advice revealed that households were forced to pay billions in excess profits to energy companies because of a mistake by the industry regulator Ofgem. Under Ofgem’s price cap, standing energy charges have risen by 43% since 2019. Water bills in England and Wales have also increased by 40% in real terms since the industry was privatised in 1989, while shareholders have received £78bn over the same period.
The question of who owns vital utilities has profound implications for millions across Britain. Taking on profiteers and fighting for public ownership could form a central plank of a leftwing populist programme. Politicians need to state clearly that we are being mugged off and voters should feel that they have some kind of power. “Take back control” should be a slogan of the left, not the right.
Another policy that I’ve outlined in a previous column is clawing back money for our crumbling infrastructure and public services by taxing the super-rich. We know that the public want higher taxes on the rich. We also know that investment in public services is good for the economy and makes desperately needed differences to living standards.
Scripted lines about growth aren’t going to cut it. Nor is opportunistic scapegoating. If Labour is unwilling to see that and tackle the issues that really matter, maybe another party will.
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