The greatest threat to the Labour government is more often found on a pub stool, in a TV studio, or in the US, than in the House of Commons.
But out of sight does not mean out of mind when talking about Nigel Farage.
While his (second) rise has been meteoric, the government’s failure to generate an effective response to one of the world’s most powerful political communicators is an oversight that could cost it the keys to No10.
With the local elections next May looking ominous, Starmer’s critics are saying he has just months left to turn his fortunes around. Before that there’s a party conference and a Budget to navigate, and neither will be plain sailing. As a result, the government needs to deal with the question of Farage, and put in place a new approach that puts them back in the driving seat.
Farage’s power is not his rhetoric alone, but his clarity of purpose. He offers a simple narrative of an out-of-touch elite that, he claims, doesn’t understand the ‘ordinary people’ he represents.
While the government offers a complex, multi-faceted ramble that lacks a single resonant core, Farage is providing single emotive images and provocative soundbites. He’s playing a different game, and he faces no seriously effective opposition.
Whether you like it or not, it’s working. Just look at the polls, where Reform have surged ahead of Labour and the Conservatives by nearly 20 points.
If Labour is to mount a serious opposition to Farage – and I say Farage rather than Reform because he is the political force driving the party’s success – it needs to move away from what it feels comfortable with and play the man in front of them.
First, it must re-engage its core voters. Once again, it is people in Labour’s heartlands who feel taken for granted and ignored. They are being lured by a ‘devil’- Reform – who appears to feel their pain. The government must fight for their trust, demonstrating it understands them and cares about them.
Second, it should move to employing unflinching honesty and ruthless simplicity in its communications.
The government must talk about what people care about in a way they can do nothing but understand. This is not about being reductionist or naive, but about proactively addressing the deep-seated lack of trust the public feels toward politicians.
The reason Farage’s oversimplification cuts through is because the alternatives are either non-existent, too slow to emerge, or too complicated to understand.
So far, Labour has tried to combat this with detail and nuance which simply isn’t working.
Take immigration, for example. When Farage declares the UK will not be “the world’s food bank,” the fact that his team cannot provide coherent answers doesn’t matter. The language cuts through because it strikes at the emotional core of a sentiment that already exists.
The government, by contrast, responded with factually accurate but vision-less details about returning people to France or reducing hotel usage.
This approach presents a government scrambling for an answer, rather than one with a clear guiding principle that drives its decision making. It’s this fundamental vulnerability that Farage and Reform exploit.
Third, what would happen if, instead of justifying its tactical choices, the government countered with a simple, values-driven message? A line like, “The UK is a place that cares about the rest of the world” points to a government that stands for something. This approach not only counters Farage’s simplicity with a moral core, it forces him to explain his own policies on Labour’s terms, not his own.
Timing is everything. Most people don’t pay attention to politics most of the time; they use key moments to take the temperature of things. The government has a handful of chances each year – at the Budget, at party conference – to get things right and sell its approach to the nation.
It must seize these opportunities with both hands, not pull its punches or hide behind complex policy. By speaking in a way a twelve-year-old can understand, and having the detail to back it up, the government has the power to change the narrative and seize the moments that matter.
A friend recently said that “this is Nigel Farage’s world and we’re all just living in it.” While an exaggeration, the sentiment points to Farage’s success in setting the terms of political debate. Labour’s strategic failings are inadvertently bolstering it.
To stop the rot, Labour must find a voice built on simplicity – the only language that can cut through the chaos and remind the country that, for now at least, it holds the keys to No10.
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