Both Labour and the Conservatives are braced for Reform UK making substantial gains in the local elections next week. Labour’s strategists anticipate a two-pronged approach to managing the fallout from the results. Firstly, they want to ensure the top headline from the polls is that the Conservatives are the big losers. Secondly, they hope to minimise as much as possible any suggestions that the results represent the public’s verdict on Labour’s first year government.
Current polling consistently shows Reform attracting comfortably over a 20% share of support when Westminster voting intentions are surveyed. Labour strategists are acutely aware this indicates Reform playing a decisive factor at the next general election.
Out of the 98 parliamentary seats in which Reform came second at the 2024 general election, Reform came second to Labour in 89. Reform presents a direct challenge to Labour. Thanks to the first-past-the-post electoral system, the party could also play a major role in shaping the results in constituencies that are currently a two-horse race between Labour and the Conservatives.
Senior Labour insiders believe much of Reform’s success stems from public disillusionment with political institutions and politicians, and a belief that government doesn’t work or deliver for working people. Reform continues to exploit this disillusionment, as shown by the party’s support for the nationalisation of British Steel and in the softening in public of enthusiasm for US President Donald Trump.
Labour has sought to counter this tendency, turning up the volume of attack messaging about the alleged threat posed by Nigel Farage and his party to the NHS, the perceived revolving door of candidates between the Conservatives and Reform and, at every opportunity, pointing to the failure to rule out electoral co-operation between the two parties. The underlying message is that Reform represents a re-badged version of the last 14 years of Conservative failure.
To defeat Reform, Labour’s strategy is to focus on relentlessly delivering for working people. It is a simple theory that is tricky to achieve in practice. For Labour to get out of the political hole the party finds itself in, voters need to feel government delivery in their pockets, in their communities and in their homes.
Sir Keir Starmer is impatient for delivery. This impatience is expected to underlie the coming ministerial reshuffle and explains why the Prime Minister has again challenged ministers and civil servants to focus relentlessly on delivery. Labour has spelt out its ambitions through its Missions, Foundations, First Steps, Milestones and Plan for Change, with economic growth being the overarching component. How the Government achieves these aspirations is a question yet to be answered.
The Prime Minister has set out a vision for a smaller state that delivers more for voters while the Chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review demands savings in areas that impact delivery. Ministers are expected to deliver on the Government’s priorities while also streamlining their departments. Some question whether this is even possible.
Time will tell whether this approach of reforming government to deliver more for less can work in unlocking Labour’s answer to the Reform question. Now they are no longer in opposition, Labour frontbenchers are finding government is tough. It involves ensuring you have the tools to deliver and the messages to explain. Delivering, and converting that delivery into political success, are not going to be easy.
