It was this time last year at Labour Party conference when a stressed Labour MP, muttering grimly about his party’s future, told me something that stuck with me. “Trust me, our biggest threat is still the Tories,” he said. “The worst-case scenario for us is if they regain their economic credibility.”
It was a rare perspective, at a time when Reform was reaching 35 per cent in polls and general election modelling suggested it would win 370-odd seats and reduce Labour constituencies to the double digits.
The cackling ghost of Nigel Farage haunted the corridors and bars of the conference that year. In what would be his final (and well-received) conference speech as leader, Keir Starmer drew a direct distinction between Labour and Reform – naming Farage as a man who “doesn’t believe in Britain”.
This year, it’s not so easy to name the enemy. Labour, the Tories and Reform are essentially neck-and-neck in the polls, and a flurry of so-called mega-polls predict a hung Parliament. After months of scandal over its finances and grappling with a far-right flank to its right in Restore, Reform has lost some confidence and momentum.
Suddenly, Labour politicians and advisers are talking about the Tories again. This is the “current discourse” in the party, as one sceptical Labour MP put it to me. The old “vote Labour to stop Reform” line is not so explicit. The conference’s slogan “Hope Again” has echoes of Andy Burnham’s by-election campaign in Makerfield, which didn’t wallow in doomsaying about Reform – his main opposition in the seat – but instead promised positive change: “For Us”.
This may be the feel-good factor we’ve come to expect from Burnham’s government, but there is also pragmatism here. The slogan is “helpfully vague”, said another Labour MP, who represents a tight swing seat. “Instead of saying we can stop Reform, the Tories or the Greens, it goes ‘sod all that, here’s what we’re about’, which is handy when we don’t always know who our main opponents are now. But I expect the next general election will be a Labour-Tory fight.”
For other Labour figures, though, there is concern that their colleagues are trying to will their old comfort zone of Labour versus Conservatives back into being – and that “we’re becoming complacent” about Reform. This may be seen in the increasingly relaxed attitude to Britain one day rejoining the EU, with Andy Burnham refusing to rule out the prospect but calling it a question “for another day”.
“Farage is the political Lazarus, he always comes back,” warned a third Labour MP. “Reform are never as dangerous as when they’re caged, backed against the wall – you have to keep poking them to see what they’re up to, you can’t ignore them and assume it’s all because of Andy that they’re falling back.”
A number of recent by-elections and polling projects have recently demonstrated the power of tactical voting for whichever party is best-placed to stop Reform; a trend that could block Farage’s path to No 10. One eye-catching analysis released on the eve of the conference by 38 Degrees, a progressive campaign group, suggested tactical voting patterns could even push Reform down to fourth place – a particularly unhelpful story for those concerned about Reform complacency.
Other work, such as the “Blocking the Path” report by anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate, suggests that the 43 per cent of the British public who wouldn’t be happy with a Reform government is not one coherent bloc. It is a slippery mix of Tory moderates, the radical left and others who it will not be straightforward to encourage to vote tactically en masse.
“We can’t be complacent at all just because this bar-chart exists that shows there are more people who are anti-Reform than pro-Reform,” warned a minister. “The electorate aren’t just pieces to be moved around on a chessboard – we can’t be complacent or take people for granted.”
Talk of campaign strategy feels premature, but as rumours of an early election continue to swirl, work is being done on how Labour builds a winning coalition. A narrow offer just to appeal to tactical-voting progressives is not enough, according to a new study “Fragmented politics” by Oxford academic Tim Soutphommasane and Stan Greenberg, pollster to Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela, for the UCL Policy Lab.
The polling, shared exclusively with the New Statesman, finds fascinating fragments of common ground that can both consolidate the centre-left and left-progressive vote around Labour, and also unite what are now being known as the left and right voting “blocs” in British politics.
The most successful messages tested by the report’s authors were on re-nationalising industries and opposing Donald Trump – extraordinarily popular positions across the political spectrum. Other examples of unifying messages include defending the Equality Act, which has near-60 per cent support, but that Reform plans to repeal. There is an opportunity to reach across the political divide to Reform-leaning voters here by including class in equality and diversity efforts. And framing messages about diversity and equality in the language of British history and values (“we stood against the Nazis”) notably improved support for them.
So far, Andy Burnham has risen above the classic Labour dilemma of whether to shore up votes on its left, or try and win back those who abandoned it for Reform. And the Makerfield Test will keep the dynamics of Labour-Reform marginals front of mind. But now that the country’s political allegiances are so split, it’s not as simple. As one Labour MP shrugged: “I have no idea who I’m up against now.”
[Further reading: John Healey renews old ties to New Labour]
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This article appears in the 01 Oct 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Sunshine and Rain
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