What will a Labour vs Reform general election look like?
Look, something miraculous could happen between now and 2029. The Tories could ditch Badenoch, find a new leader that doesn’t listen to all the idiots going “If only you went REALLY right-wing, then you’d win again”. They could do that. They aren’t going to. They’ve decided they’d prefer to commit political suicide. Fine. Most people in Britain will live with that just fine.
I actually think that the demise of the Conservative party has some sad - as well as potentially frightening - elements to it as well. I explore that in the video above, with an added bonus for history geeks of trying to compare what is happening to the Tories of today with what happened to the Liberal party in the early 20th century, when they went from a landslide victory in 1906 to a political irrelevance in a relatively short space of time. Could the 2019 general election be remembered in a similar way?
However, I am here now to talk to you about what the next election might look like, should the Tories continue to go mad and destroy themselves, resulting in a Labour vs Reform general election campaign.
Both Starmer and Farage’s offer will essentially be a refutation of the other guy. “Vote for me or you’ll get him. Wouldn’t that be horrible?” Farage will try and convince anyone who doesn’t like this Labour government and is also not uber far-left to give him a go. “Don’t you want change?” will be the Farage offer. Meanwhile, Labour will try and scare the pants off of everyone about Reform. “Whatever you think of this government, let us remind you that if it’s not us, it will be Farage. Do you really want to make him prime minister? Really? Could you live with yourselves if that were to happen?”
The flaws in this strategy from a Labour perspective are already presenting themselves. For a start, they need to leave the country in obviously better shape than it is now for the “devil you know” strategy to have any chance of working for them. At the moment, the polling suggests they are nowhere near doing this, but they do have four years to turn that around, I suppose. The other problem is that if you ape Reform enough, getting left-wing people to vote for you out of fear of Farage becomes increasingly less effective. “Why should I be scared of Farage when you lot aren’t that different anyhow?” some on the left may ask themselves, with some good reason. “I may as well vote Green and see where the chips fall.”
Reform’s strategy is more solid - the two big things that could derail it are Labour actually solving some problems and thus turning around their unpopularity problem (possible) or failing that, for the Tories to stop destroying themselves and start trying to win again (extremely unlikely). But there are pitfalls for Farage’s crew. They have to watch how many Tories they allow into the fold, for a start. At some point relatively soon, there will be an avalanche of Tory MPs and hopefuls who will be flocking to defect. Taking some of them may have short term advantages - but at a certain point, they might just start to look like the Tories in disguise, a party that is unbelievably unpopular, to remind you all. They are managing to pull off the “anti-establishment” thing at present - get Jacob Rees-Mogg and a few of mates along and that starts to seem a lot more dubious to the electorate.
It will be interesting to see how the Lib Dem vote will hold up. They could get squeezed but I doubt it - I think they are still a repository for type of ex-Tory voter who would never vote Labour or Reform. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lib Dems pick up a few more seats, even in an election that will be all about Starmer vs Farage. The Greens will disappoint their supporters, like they always do, but that’s so obvious it doesn’t really need saying.
And who will be Tory leader at the next general election? The correct answer to that is, of course, who cares.
That our media landscape is complicit in the rise of Farage is beyond doubt. But to dismiss Reform's popularity as born only of this is mistaken. He pushes people's buttons - but let's be clear here, there has always been a skein of neo-fascism in the British/English make up. When you've been at the top of a worldwide empire whose colonial states you've run as authoritarian dictatorships for at least decades if not centuries there can't be any other outcome. Across all parts of society. That manifests now as Exceptionalism; "we're the special ones". So there are plenty of buttons to push.
If Labour, or any political opponents, are to actually fight Reform they must stop aping them where they live and attack them everywhere else. Even though their immigration policies are ridiculous and illegal, they're also economically naive and ignorant, weak on foreign policy (inevitable if you hate everyone else except America), NHS and public services and in local governance likely incompetent - it's an incompetence already apparently in their candidate vetting processes.
Populism is attractive to the politically disengaged. Which is now a very high proportion of the populace. Mostly because everything is now centralised. That's Labour's real job. To re-engage people by being moderately successful and above all delegating authority AWAY from Westminster to bring more and more of the population back into the political tent thus driving their understanding of just how dreadful Reform UK really are.
How would you know if the Greens disappointed their supporters? Speaking as one of them, they have not. What is disappointing is how much the media has concentrated on Reform - I am talking about prior to the local elections - and giving countless hours of airtime and vast wordcounts to Farage and his cronies. How much coverage do the Greens get in comparison? 1% as much, at best. So, its not that much of a surprise if Reform are polling so well given all the free publicity, and the ineptitude of the current government in giving them credibility by trying to move into their space. Labour keep affirming Reform's view of the world and plagiarising their policies. Surely even an idiot can see that this is only going to make Reform more popular and more plausible.
Why vote for Reform-lite when you can have Full-Strength Farage?
The Greens don't fit into the media frame of controversy, clicks and reactions. They take politics seriously as being about representing people, having principles, sticking to promises, listening to their supporters, and focusing on what they believe is best for the country amd the planet in the long term, while trying to ensure good outcomes in the here and now. In short, intelligent, compassionate, caring, open, responsible and genuine politics, as opposed to the manipulative, point-scoring, advantage seeking, funder pleasing, rentier favouring, say whatever we think people want to hear, blame game, punch downward, short termist approach of principle-free egotists like Farage, or shape-shifters like Starmer, who believe only in themselves and their sponsors, and will do or say whatever they feel is to their advantage. Although, TBH, Starmer doesn't even seem to believe in himself. He appears to only think what he thinks people want him to think at the time they are thinking it. A perpetually self cleaning tabula rasa.