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If the Labour conference has a theme so far, it is the same as last week’s Liberal Democrat bunfight: Reform UK.
You would think Nigel Farage’s party had just formed a government, rather than being a small gang of extremists on the far-right fringe of UK politics.
Keir Starmer set the tone before the speeches even began, insisting that Labour is the patriotic party and Reform’s agenda is a threat to the country’s values.
But he shot his own party in the foot, telling the BBC that Reform’s immigration policy was “racist” and “immoral” – before Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was able to give her speech adopting some of Reform’s ideas on Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).
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The plan, it seems, is to limit the number of people who are allowed that privilege, with tighter rules on language, volunteering and community “contribution”.
According to the BBC: “Legal migrants will have to learn English to a high standard, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community to be granted permanent settlement status.”
She framed it as a dividing line with Reform, that wants to abolish ILR altogether – but the fact is that Labour will be seen to be doing this because Nigel Farage proposed it first. It’s not so much the tail, as the flea wagging the dog.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, too, was pulled into the Reform narrative, echoing Starmer’s words and calling its migrant proposals racist. She promised tough action against those in the UK illegally, hoping to blunt Reform’s appeal.
She was among a throng of Labour MPs and ministers who seemed keen to spend more time denouncing Reform UK than setting out their own plans.
The message is twofold: Labour thinks Farage is the opponent it must fight – and would prefer to do that, rather than admit the sparsity of its own offer.
The big problem is that the strategy of attacking Reform has been tried before – just last week at the Liberal Democrat conference.
Obsessed with the fringe party, the Lib Dems spent their time denouncing it instead of focussing on their own message.
As a result, Reform gained far more attention than it deserved, and the Lib Dems’ policies barely got a look-in.
The lesson should have been obvious: if you want to keep a fringe party on the margins, you dismiss it as a marginal force and then talk about your own agenda.
Labour didn’t learn that lesson. And if its ministers aren’t smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others – and in fact have gone on to repeat them – then what hope can we have that any of Labour’s policies will do a blind bit of good?
In fairness, Labour has also taken swipes at the SNP and Plaid Cymru, with Anas Sarwar calling the SNP “knackered” and Eluned Morgan dismissing Plaid and Reform as “different poison, same bottle”.
But those interventions feel like the kind of side-notes that were all Nigel Farage’s party deserved.
Instead, Reform has stolen the conference spotlight – and Labour has been holding the torch.
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Labour’s obsession with Reform UK hands Farage a publicity gift
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If the Labour conference has a theme so far, it is the same as last week’s Liberal Democrat bunfight: Reform UK.
You would think Nigel Farage’s party had just formed a government, rather than being a small gang of extremists on the far-right fringe of UK politics.
Keir Starmer set the tone before the speeches even began, insisting that Labour is the patriotic party and Reform’s agenda is a threat to the country’s values.
But he shot his own party in the foot, telling the BBC that Reform’s immigration policy was “racist” and “immoral” – before Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was able to give her speech adopting some of Reform’s ideas on Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).
The plan, it seems, is to limit the number of people who are allowed that privilege, with tighter rules on language, volunteering and community “contribution”.
According to the BBC: “Legal migrants will have to learn English to a high standard, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community to be granted permanent settlement status.”
She framed it as a dividing line with Reform, that wants to abolish ILR altogether – but the fact is that Labour will be seen to be doing this because Nigel Farage proposed it first. It’s not so much the tail, as the flea wagging the dog.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, too, was pulled into the Reform narrative, echoing Starmer’s words and calling its migrant proposals racist. She promised tough action against those in the UK illegally, hoping to blunt Reform’s appeal.
She was among a throng of Labour MPs and ministers who seemed keen to spend more time denouncing Reform UK than setting out their own plans.
The message is twofold: Labour thinks Farage is the opponent it must fight – and would prefer to do that, rather than admit the sparsity of its own offer.
The big problem is that the strategy of attacking Reform has been tried before – just last week at the Liberal Democrat conference.
Obsessed with the fringe party, the Lib Dems spent their time denouncing it instead of focussing on their own message.
As a result, Reform gained far more attention than it deserved, and the Lib Dems’ policies barely got a look-in.
The lesson should have been obvious: if you want to keep a fringe party on the margins, you dismiss it as a marginal force and then talk about your own agenda.
Labour didn’t learn that lesson. And if its ministers aren’t smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others – and in fact have gone on to repeat them – then what hope can we have that any of Labour’s policies will do a blind bit of good?
In fairness, Labour has also taken swipes at the SNP and Plaid Cymru, with Anas Sarwar calling the SNP “knackered” and Eluned Morgan dismissing Plaid and Reform as “different poison, same bottle”.
But those interventions feel like the kind of side-notes that were all Nigel Farage’s party deserved.
Instead, Reform has stolen the conference spotlight – and Labour has been holding the torch.
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