The Government is worried about Reform UK, for reasons that are made obvious by every new opinion poll. Just as evident is the fact that Downing Street is yet to find a reliable and effective argument to deploy against Nigel Farage’s insurgents.
Every couple of days, ministers test out new lines to see how they land. Part of the difficulty is that Farage has been around for so long that he has already weathered most of the attacks that might be deployed against him.
Another challenge is his “plague on all your houses” message, which speaks to the weary disillusionment felt by many voters after years of being badly let down by the traditional main parties.
Thus far, Reform has been able to trade effectively on the basis that it doesn’t necessarily matter if every detail of their ideas is worked out, nor if there are practical and technical questions about how they might put their agenda into practice, because – the argument goes – it can’t be any worse than this lot, can it?
It might not feel very fair to Labour and the Conservatives that they must provide footnotes and references for all policy proposals while Farage and his allies often manage to deploy broad-brush pledges and wave away detail as being something for dweebs. But politics isn’t fair. Deal with it.
The answer for the Government is to lean into its own strengths. While a start-up opposition party might be held to lower standards of policy detail, a government has the huge advantage of actually being in charge and thereby being able to do things, rather than just talk.
This is where Sir Keir Starmer’s best hope of salvation lies – specifically in the person of Shabana Mahmood, the new Home Secretary.
Aside from the ongoing struggle to stop the boats and quell illegal immigration, the Government knows that it must address public concern about the level of legal migration to this country, in the aftermath of the so-called “Boriswave”.
Ministers believe that Reform made a mis-step last week in announcing a policy to abolish indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
It was a headline-grabbing plan, which, true to Farage’s customary style, was intended to demonstrate that he is the real deal when it comes to controlling immigration – by going further than any other party.
But while it pleased his base, it will bring trouble down the line. In particular the pledge to remove ILR retrospectively from hundreds of thousands of people – many of whom have been settled and integrated productively in this country for years or even decades – is a political time bomb.
Fast forward to the next general election. If Reform retain their poll lead then this policy will be an imminent possibility. Every business will begin to audit how many of their employees will find their residency put in doubt. Almost every household will have neighbours, friends, or family members who are worried about the security of their future here.
square MARK WALLACE Is Keir Starmer already toast? I don’t think so
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Even many voters who support scrapping ILR for new arrivals may well feel differently about removing it from the pensioners next door who have worked and paid taxes here for decades, or their niece’s husband, or their colleague at work.
Glimmers of opportunity for the Government are sparse nowadays, so this sticks out as a rare chance. It’s unfortunate, then, that the Prime Minister made a blunder of his own this weekend when he branded Reform’s policy “racist”.
In an instant, real practical issues were obscured by a debate about the widespread feeling that “racist” is overused as a blanket slur to shut down political disagreement. Perhaps it was heartfelt, perhaps it was instinctive, but either way it was politically naïve. Many Labour/Reform switchers who are on the fence will have recoiled at the slur.
A more practical approach for Labour’s fightback came in the Home Secretary’s speech on Monday, in which she announced concrete steps intended to draw the sting from Farage’s words. ILR will now take 10 years to achieve, instead of five. Applicants must learn English to a demonstrably high standard, volunteer in the community, and work, with their economic contribution tracked by national insurance contributions. They will not be allowed to claim benefits, and getting a criminal record will exclude them from the right to gain ILR.
For those outside the more dogmatic ideological milieu of the left (that is: most people), it’s possible to underestimate how controversial some of this is within parts of the Labour Party.
Mahmood herself presented her agenda as a sort of Clause IV moment – telling the conference in Liverpool that “you won’t always like what I do”.
In particular, the contributory principle, as applied here to migration – described by its champions in campaign group Labour Together as the belief that fairness means “to get something out of the country, you have to put something in” – is a source of genuine angst among activists and some MPs, who fear it will in time replace the universal principle underpinning the welfare system.
Back in the outside world, most people will see such fairness as simple common sense. Which is why Mahmood is right to challenge her party to overcome its discomfort and get with the real world.
We don’t yet know if her policies will work. Or, if they do work, whether they will be sufficient on their own to address the issue. But we do know that Sir Keir Starmer desperately needs her not only to succeed, but to be popularly believed to have succeeded.
In cynical times, after many years of broken promises on border control, net migration, social integration and more, achieving that with a disillusioned electorate that will be her biggest challenge of all. If she fails, Nigel Farage will be waiting in the wings, ready to pounce.
Mark Wallace is chief executive of Total Politics Group
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