Labour’s got the jitters – which is why they’re taking Farage seriously

Labour is making plans for Nigel – how to combat Nigel Farage, that is. Until recently, Keir Starmer’s allies believed Reform UK would mainly damage the Conservatives and help Labour by splitting the right-wing vote, as it did at last year’s election.

But now Labour strategists take seriously the prospect of Reform winning scores of Labour seats next time. They can no longer assume Reform and the Tories won’t forge an electoral pact or at least encourage anti-Labour tactical voting as Labour and the Liberal Democrats did successfully last year. After all, a Con-Farage deal helped Boris Johnson win a majority of 80 in 2019.

Some Labour figures insist their party won’t be hit by a “time for change” factor after only one term. But that is not the view from the top. Or among the Labour MPs who fear they might lose their seats after five years. In almost every developed nation, a majority thinks the country is heading in the wrong direction and wants change. The status quo seems a bigger risk.

I’m told Labour intends to squeeze the Lib Dems and Greens (who currently have a healthy 22 per cent between them in the opinion polls) to make the next election a straight left-right fight. But that might not work; as my colleague John Rentoul noted recently, Labour may be under attack from its left as well as its right.

Labour’s jitters have been heightened by this week’s YouGov poll showing Reform ahead of both Labour and the Tories. Labour MPs in the 89 seats where Reform came second last year, many in the red wall, have formed a group which will urge a tougher government line on immigration and crime.

How will Starmer combat the Farage effect? Although Labour won’t fight the last war, the next election will also be about change. As Farage proudly wears his anti-establishment badge, Labour will be the establishment in the eyes of many voters. It will be up against some version of the populist right – led by Farage or the Tories or both.

Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister and one of Starmer’s closest allies, revealed Labour’s thinking at a brainstorming session held by the Progressive Britain think tank: “Labour must not defend a status quo that isn’t ours, or instinctively defend systems and situations that are not delivering well enough for the public.” He added: “We cannot allow the battle to be between the disruptors of opposition and the disrupted of incumbency. We too have to be disruptors.”

Easier said than done in government – although Donald Trump is doing it. Indeed, in the grave new world, some Labour MPs admit privately there are lessons to learn from Trump – even if they pinch themselves when they say it. For example, some argue the government should approve the controversial giant Rosebank oilfield to protect the jobs of “working people” rather than lose them and import more oil and gas. But Labour is deeply divided, and its strong green wing, already seething the government is backing a third runway at Heathrow airport, is now steamed up about what might prove a “drill, baby drill” decision on Rosebank. The idea of aping Trump will abhor many inside Labour, but the party will have to become more populist – without abandoning its core values – to see off the populists.

There’s another Trump parallel. Ministers frustrated with the Whitehall machine responding slowly to their edicts have concluded that “the state” is not working and needs an overhaul. For Starmer, being a competent technocrat will not be enough. Defending institutions that are not working well will harm Labour, as pro-Europeans found in the 2016 Brexit referendum, so ministers must challenge them.

As McFadden put it: “Expecting more from a system which has too many good people caught in bad processes won’t work. We have to be changemakers in how the state works to make sure it is outcomes that matter not processes, to build what we do around the person using the service, and use the advantages of technology to the full.”

Rather than ignore Farage and hope he damages the Tories, Labour will attack him head on. It has begun to highlight his openness to funding the NHS through social insurance.

On the face of it, the best way to defeat the populists is through delivery. But a fear haunts some Labour figures: even if they can point to some improvements in the NHS, living standards and immigration by 2029, impatient voters are in no mood to thank mainstream parties they think are “all the same”, as Farage puts it. People will still want change. With incumbents being booted out around the world, Labour might struggle to avoid a kicking.

Being an insurgent government won’t be easy. But if Labour doesn’t pull it off, the populists might claim another victory in four years – this time in the UK.