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When a former Treasury adviser and lifelong macroeconomist like Simon Wren-Lewis says Labour isn’t just failing in policy but in political strategy, it’s worth paying attention.

His latest Mainly Macro post identifies three grave mistakes Labour has made in its first year: underestimating the fiscal crisis, parroting Farage on immigration, and refusing to tell the truth about Brexit.

But one phrase in particular jumped out at This Writer: fool’s gold.

Farage’s immigration message, Professor Wren-Lewis argues, is just that.

A shimmering promise that collapses under scrutiny.

If Labour won’t challenge it, someone else must.

‘Fool’s Gold’ politics

Labour’s current tactic—to echo Farage’s tone while claiming more competence—has backfired.

Rather than neutralising Reform UK’s rise, it has amplified it.

Prof Wren-Lewis points out that by repeating the idea that immigration is to blame for crumbling public services, Labour has not only helped put immigration at the top of voters’ concerns—it has also helped Farage lead the polls.

If everyone is selling the same story, voters will choose the original.

If you sound like Farage, you lose to Farage.

The truth, of course, is more complex—and more damning to the populist right.

Immigration didn’t break Britain’s public services; years of underfunding, austerity, and low investment did.

Immigrants prop up the NHS and social care.

They pay in more than they take out.

Restricting immigration without fixing skills, training, and wages won’t solve a thing.

Farage’s message is fool’s gold: bright, enticing, and utterly worthless.

It promises a prosperity that will never come.

Brexit was the original scam

Prof Wren-Lewis makes another vital point: Farage already sold Britain a fool’s gold lie once before: Brexit.

It was marketed as freedom, prosperity, sovereignty.

It delivered economic isolation, falling trade, and stagnant wages.

And Labour is too timid to say what voters already know.

Prof Wren-Lewis warns that by avoiding the truth about Brexit’s damage, Labour is giving up its most powerful weapon against Reform UK.

Even ‘Leave’ voters can see they were conned.

But that anger is being channelled back through Farage—because Labour won’t offer a truth-based alternative.

Time for a new voice?

If Labour won’t provide facts and honesty, someone else must.

The potential new party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana may be the conduit for that provision.

They have the chance to say clearly:

• Farage’s immigration rhetoric is a fraud
• His Brexit promises were lies
• The idea that we can have European-quality services without European-level taxes is delusional

They can say: immigration policy needs reform, yes—but it should focus on skills, wages, and training, not scapegoats.

That message, rooted in truth and fairness, is Labour’s only path to defeating the right.

A winning strategy

There’s nothing wrong with promising lower immigration, if done with honesty and care.

But Labour’s triangulation—its strategy of copying the other right-wing party’s framing while softening its tone—simply doesn’t work in government.

Voters judge results, not vibes.

And right now, Reform UK’s story—however false—is going unchallenged.

Professor Wren-Lewis calls this out with clarity: policies that work for opposition do not work in power – and if Labour can’t change course, then a new party must step in with the courage to fight falsehoods with facts.

End the illusion

Fool’s gold is shiny, but worthless. Farage’s promises are political alchemy: turning fear into power. But the result is always the same—broken services, broken communities, broken trust.

We don’t need imitation.

We need opposition.

And we need leaders who’ll speak the truth about immigration, Brexit, and the real causes of Britain’s decline.

If Labour won’t do it, someone else must.

And they should start with this:

Farage is selling you fool’s gold. Don’t buy it.

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