Who wins from Keir Starmer’s decision to mimic the rhetoric and political strategy of Nigel Farage and Reform on migration?
That was the question I asked during a live discussion with
on the this afternoon, which you can watch in full in the above video.Looking at today’s newspapers it’s clear that the answer to that question isn’t either the Labour party or Starmer himself.
Attacked by the Daily Mail from the right with allegations of dishonesty and hypocrisy and attacked from the centre left by The Guardian, with allegations of echoing the far right, Starmer’s speech has also led to huge amounts of anger and consternation among Labour MPs.
With business groups and the care sector also raising big concerns about the specific policies being pursued by the Government, it’s difficult to identify anyone who is actually likely to benefit from the Prime Minister’s intervention.
That is of course, apart from Nigel Farage himself.
Losing on Your Opponents Ground
As I set out in my discussion with Adrian, it has long been understood by political strategists that effective campaigns are fought and won on your own political turf.
One of the reasons why the Labour party were able to win the last general election is because they focused their campaigning on issues like the economy, public services and government competence - all of which they were perceived by voters to be strong on, compared to the Conservatives.
By contrast, almost everything they have done since that election has undermined those strengths, while playing into their opponents’ hands.
Whether it’s cutting welfare and public spending, talking up culture war issues like trans rights, or engaging in Farage-style rhetoric about immigration, Starmer has succeeded only in undermining his own party’s strengths, while ensuring that the political battlefield remains on his opponents’ ground.
The result is the increased salience of immigration as an issue among voters, an increased focus on the Labour party’s record on that issue, which is perceived by most voters as poor, and the increased relevance of Nigel Farage and Reform.
It didn’t have to be this way. In Australia, Labour’s sister party just won a decisive victory against their anti-migration Trump-supporting opponents, precisely by moving the political debate back onto ground where they were perceived as strong and their rivals were perceived as weak.
Similarly in Canada, Mark Carney turned around what had looked to be a very likely defeat to a Trumpian opposition, precisely by attacking his opponents where they were weak, in their association with the US President.
By contrast, our Prime Minister appears to have looked at the experience of other successful centre left Governments in the English-speaking world and decided to do the exact opposite.
Now it may be that Starmer’s chief political strategist Morgan McSweeney has a secret plan to win the next election while doing the precise opposite of what almost every other successful political campaign has ever done, but if so it is not yet showing up in the polls, some of which have Nigel Farage’s party up to ten points ahead.
Time to Change Course
Now it doesn’t have to be this way. As I also set out in my discussion with Adrian, Farage and Reform are eminently beatable.
On everything from the economy, to public services, to foreign policy, Farage has weaknesses a mile wide, that any sensible centre-left political leader would be exploiting relentlessly right now.
Whether it’s Farage’s sympathies for Putin, or the £100 billion black hole in his party’s plans, Starmer has plenty of ammunition he could be using against the Reform leader. Yet rather than attack Farage where he is weak, before moving the political conversation onto ground where Labour is strong, the Prime Minister is doing the complete polar opposite.
This isn’t likely to end well.
You can read more about how Westminster’s political parties and news organisations fell for the politics of Farage in my latest column, exclusive to the next print edition of Byline Times, which you can order by clicking this link.
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