“Fucking finally,” an activist muttered.
Polling day is Thursday 2 October for the Strawberry by-election in Ellesmere Port. It’s a Labour held seat, Labour is now threatened by Reform, who might just do it. Nervous Labour activists wanted something good from conference. Meat for the bone. Meat for the voters. Reasons for the voters to back Labour again.
Keir Starmer calling Reform’s immigration policy racist might just do it. At least, that might be what the activists think. To Party Conference goers, it’s open and shut. Why wouldn’t you call it prejudiced? Clear-cut opposition in the face of the Faragistas. It might just rally sympathetic supporters. On paper, as I write it, it sounds sound.
But here’s the thing. Voters digest is a shortened, simpler version of events. So vibes matter. First impressions matter. That makes castigating Farage and Reform for racism less obviously wise than Labour’s activists may think.
Right now, the immigration vibes favour Reform more than they do Labour. The party seen with the best approach (read: sentiment) to dealing with the issue is Reform. It’s been like that for a party of the hard right for more than a decade. It was Ukip, and now it is Reform. Scolding the party voters feel most in tune with is… a move.
Starmer has made a sentimental attack using a sentiment most voters do not back. A plurality of voters regard Reform as racist. But not Farage. And note not a majority. And it’s less felt among apathetic voters.
Simply, Starmer has made contentious debate more contentious and has told the median Briton they are wrong. The median Briton would be seeing not an attack on policy, but an attack on the sentiment. And on the sentiment, the median Briton would feel they’re part of that. They’re being labelled racist too. There’s a time and a place for calling a policy or a party or a politician racist. That time was not now.
Starmer’s attack on Reform was meat for Labour members. It wasn’t for Reform’s fellow travellers. It wasn’t for the 10 per cent plus who’ve since stopped voting for Labour and now support Reform. And nor was it for the non-voters Labour has since lost who are so key to re-election in 2029.
When you’re this down, and this out, it’s an attack without sense. It will only make things worse.
[Further reading: Why is Labour so cheery?]
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