Opinion
The fight against Reform is not a culture war. It’s a class war.
Left Foot Forward
'Labour’s socialist values and traditions are not the problem – they are the solution.'
The recent local elections sent a clear and urgent message: the threat from the far right is real, and as a party, we cannot afford to ignore it. Reform made significant gains by exploiting fear, frustration and alienation – particularly in working-class communities that once formed the backbone of Labour support. Their rise isn’t just a symptom of Tory collapse. It’s a challenge to Labour’s credibility and purpose in government.
People want change: real, meaningful, material change. But in too many places, they’re not hearing it from Labour. Reform is stepping into that vacuum – not because they have credible answers, but because they’ve mastered the art of blame. They offer scapegoats instead of solutions, division instead of hope. If Labour doesn’t rise to meet this challenge with courage and clarity, we risk sleepwalking into something far more dangerous than just another right-wing party.
Some voices argue that Labour’s problem is being ‘too liberal’, too focused on minority rights or ‘too metropolitan’. That analysis is not only wrong – it’s dangerous. It accepts the far-right framing that social progress and solidarity are somehow to blame for people’s struggles, instead of decades of austerity, deregulation, and a political class that has failed to deliver for working people.
The idea that Labour should retreat from defending migrants, LGBTQ+ communities or trans people is both a political miscalculation and a moral failure. Britain’s working class is not one-dimensional. It is white, Black, Brown, straight, queer, migrant, disabled, and more.
These are not distractions from the class struggle – they are the class struggle. The fight against racism and scapegoating is the same fight as the one against low pay, poor housing, and crumbling public services. You can’t defeat one without the other.
Reform is gaining ground not because of progressive values – but because people are fed up. Fed up with stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, long NHS waits, and a sense that no one in power is really on their side. But Reform doesn’t offer solutions. It offers rage. It takes real anger and misdirects it at immigrants, trans people, and so-called ‘woke culture’ – when the real enemy is the rigged economy and the elite interests who profit from it.
Runcorn must be a warning we can’t ignore. Labour cannot afford to try and outflank Reform on issues like immigration or cultural identity. People can smell inauthenticity. If they want the hard right, they’ll vote for the real thing. If we start talking about migration as a ‘problem’ or imply we’ve gone too far in defending equality, we’re not just playing a losing game – we’re helping shift the whole debate further into dangerous territory.
What we need is a politics that speaks to people’s pain with honesty and hope. Labour should be the party saying: your child can’t get a dental appointment not because of a refugee, but because the Tories cut public health services and handed contracts to their mates. You can’t afford rent not because of asylum seekers, but because landlords have been allowed to extract ever more from people’s pockets with no serious regulation. Your job is insecure not because of migrants, but because your union rights have been gutted and your wages have been deliberately suppressed.
If Labour isn’t saying these things – clearly, confidently, and repeatedly – then of course people will look elsewhere.
We need to stop fearing our own shadow. Labour should be calling for wealth taxes to rebuild our public services. Labour should be leading the charge on public ownership – of water, energy and rail – because they belong to all of us. Labour should not be afraid to take on profiteering landlords, rip-off bosses, and billionaire press barons who stoke fear and division to protect their own wealth.
If we don’t step up now, the alternative won’t be more of the same – it’ll be an extreme right-wing government. One that smashes rights, pits neighbour against neighbour and rewrites the rules of democracy to cling to power.
The choice for Labour is not between ‘identity politics’ and ‘bread-and-butter issues’. That’s a false dichotomy. The real choice is between offering people a sense of hope and justice – or allowing the politics of hate to fill the void.
We don’t need to retreat. We need to go on the offensive – with radical, working-class politics that unites people across race, gender, and background. That builds homes, funds services, raises wages and tackles inequality. That offers real answers to real problems.
Labour’s socialist values and traditions are not the problem – they are the solution. The fight against Reform is not a culture war. It’s a class war. And it’s time we started acting like it.
Kim Johnson is the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside
5 lessons for the Left after Reform UK’s local election wins
Reform UK’s success in last week’s local elections must be a wake-up call for Labour, and the Left more broadly. They won 677 council seats and took control of 10 councils. They also won the mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire, and the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helbsy. With results like these, sitting back until next year’s local elections — or even worse, banking on blocking Farage from reaching No 10 in 2029 — are not options.
Labour is hesitant to confront Reform UK head-on, opting instead to echo some of its populist talking points in the hope of holding onto voters. In contrast, the Lib Dems and Greens are pushing back more forcefully. The challenge now is clear: how can the Left (including Labour) build on that resistance and present a credible alternative to Reform UK’s vision?
Here are five lessons the Left must learn from Reform UK’s local election wins.
1. The fightback against Reform starts now
Polls suggested Reform’s rise, and last week’s local election results confirmed it. The Left, especially Labour, can’t afford to wait and watch Reform’s next steps. While it’s true that Reform UK would dismantle the NHS if in power, focusing solely on single issues like this won’t be enough to sway voters ahead of the 2029 general election. To pretend it is, would be to sleepwalk our way to a Reform UK government. Ed Davey has shown what it looks like to repeatedly call out Nigel Farage’s divisive politics. When Farage spoke out about how children are ‘overdiagnosed’ with special needs and mental health issues, Davey immediately set the record straight.
In a BBC interview, he said: “Nigel Farage knows nothing about this. I’d rather like to speak to the experts, […] people who really understand these issues”. He proudly stands up for internationalist values and positions his party against destructive nationalist politics. While not popular among everyone (well, Brexiteers), the Lib Dems want the UK to seek a new customs union and eventually rejoin the EU. Voters know where Davey stands, and this will have played a part in the Lib Dems’ strong showing at the polls last week.
2. The culture war is a distraction tactic, but the Left can’t ignore it
Reform’s “war on woke” marches on, and their recent local election successes have given them a mandate they so eagerly wanted to push this agenda. Take Andrea Jenkyns’ pledge to remove diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) officers at Lincolnshire County Council, where there are checks notes, no DEI officers employed. Despite the facts, the emotionally charged narrative “lets get rid of wasteful diversity and inclusion measures bankrupting our councils” remains far more persuasive. Or Reform’s policy to ban all flags except Union Jack, St George’s Cross and county flags – a symbolic (nationalistic) gesture with no real substance. The Left needs to stand up for meaningful inclusion of people from all different backgrounds, it needs to be unapologetically anti-racist, and highlight that aside from being morally reprehensible, targeting trans people —who make up less than 1% of the population— with policies such as banning “transgender ideology” in schools, is not a good use of council time or money. Progressives left the culture war chat a while ago, it’s time we rejoin and end this harmful discourse for good.
3. Reform’s lack of a plan is their Achilles’ heel
The Left must not only call out the distraction tactics, like the ongoing culture war Reform is stoking, but repeatedly point out what the party has not achieved. Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, couldn’t point to a single achievement the party has made in local government. At the time, they had 128 councillors, that number increased by another 677 last week. With no clear policies for local government, it is even more challenging to hold them to account. Yet their lack of a plan is also their achilles heel. History shows us what happens when a party has no real plan—just look at UKIP’s time in control of Thanet in 2015. Their lack of policies caused big rifts and squabbles between UKIP councillors over plans for the Manston airport site, defections, and ultimately, their loss of Thanet—before they briefly regained it and lost it again.
4. Reform’s claims it represents white working class voters must be challenged
Reform is positioning itself as a party that stands for white working-class people who feel neglected, living in towns and cities that they believe have seen better times, where their job prospects fall short of expectations. This is a con. Farage is public school educated, and he has pocketed almost £900,000 from second jobs since last July, the most out of any MP. By peddling anti-migrant narratives, demonising people who have fled war using the only option open to them, and risking their lives (or dying) in small boats on the channel, he’s lining his pockets. But none of this changes the circumstances of working class people who are struggling. He talks about the migrants being housed in hotels at the cost of £2 billion to the taxpayer. White British homeless people are also housed in hotels and private rented accommodation which are costly to councils and the taxpayer. This isn’t a result of misuse of funds—it’s the outcome of Margaret Thatcher’s policies that forced councils to sell off housing and to this day have made it almost impossible for councils to build social housing. It’s a legacy of privatisation that must be addressed, but it’s not part of some grand conspiracy.
5. Political reforms, not Reform UK
What we saw at last week’s local elections was mass disillusionment with politics. People have thought politicians are “all the same” for some time now. That disillusionment has now hardened into anger that can’t be ignored. Reform UK came along and pointed out everything is “broken”- and their message resonated with many voters. The current political landscape is fragmented, leading to parties winning with smaller majorities and ushering in “the age of five-party politics”. We saw this in action with elections like the West of England mayoralty, where Labour’s Helen Godwin won on just 25% of the vote. Last year, Labour won the general election with just a third of the vote. Labour needs to respond to this by looking at electoral reform and introducing proportional a voting system. A recent poll by Survation found that 64% of people believe there is a need to address the electoral system before the next general election. As one of the two major parties in the first-past-the-post system, Labour had previously been reluctant to embrace voting reform. But now, it is a pressing issue, and the future of our democracy is dependent on political reform. That also means tackling murky financing in politics and countering disinformation in election campaigns. The Left can’t cling to power, we must win it. And when we do, we must use it for good.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Labour lose Runcorn: lessons to learn
“On every door it was the same story — winter fuel and PIP.” These were the words of one Labour campaigner emerging from the count at the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, where Reform UK won – by just six votes – one of Labour’s safest seats.
The by-election occurred after Labour MP Mike Amesbury, who won the seat with 53% of the vote at the general election, was forced to resign after being convicted for assault.
It’s the first time in over half a century that Labour has not represented Runcorn. Turnout was high for a by-election at 46%. Reform overturned Labour’s 14,700 majority in a result that, if replicated at a general election, could see them win scores of parliamentary seats. More than 250 Labour MPs, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and three other Cabinet members would lose their seats if the swing were repeated across the country.
“Farage’s party sought to make immigration the key issue in this overwhelmingly white British corner of north-west England, raising fears over small boat crossings, houses of multiple occupancy and even Turkish barbers,” reported the Guardian.
“Reform UK also attacked Labour’s cutting of the winter fuel payment – an issue repeatedly raised by voters – as well as its early release of prisoners and the rising cost of energy bills.”
Labour were in trouble from the outset given the circumstances in which its disgraced MP had to resign following his brutal late-night attack, caught on camera, on a member of the public. Karen Shore, the replacement candidate, fought an unprincipled campaign which appeared to make concessions to the racist right when she launched a Facebook petition to close a local hotel which accommodated asylum seekers.
Former Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott commented: “Labour’s campaign for these elections was non-stop boats, asylum, deportation, courts. It was all about copying Reform UK. It was a disaster. It should stop.”
Despite a crowded field of thirteen contenders, the result was essentially a two-horse race. Candidates supposedly to the left of Labour failed to make an impression: Peter Ford, who ran for George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain and who campaigned on slogans that included “Stop the Boats” and “Tough on Immigration” got a derisory 164 votes.
Drawing lessons
Pollster More in Common’s Luke Tryl suggested the swing to Reform in Runcorn, as well as in council and mayoral elections, reflects “deep disillusionment with the status quo, anger at 14 years of Tories and frustration with the start of the Labour government.”
In response to Labour’s defeat in Runcorn, Momentum Co-Chair Sasha das Gupta said: “By continuing austerity, pandering to the far right and failing to offer real change, the Labour Leadership risks handing the country to the likes of Nigel Farage.
It’s time for MPs, Councillors, Party members and the wider labour movement to speak out, oppose attacks on living standards, and demand the Government change course by offering real Labour values and standing up for working class communities.”
Brian Leishman MP agreed, tweeting: “Runcorn shows Labour must change course. People voted for real change last July and an end to austerity. The first 10 months haven’t been good enough or what the people want and if we don’t improve people’s living standards then the next government will be an extreme right wing one.”
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP said: “Labour supporters feel Labour, their Party, has turned its back on them citing Winter Fuel Allowance, the NI tax on jobs and the threat of disability cuts. The message to ministers is: drop the plans to attack the disabled.”
Nadia Whittome MP agreed: “Cutting disability benefits and scrapping the Winter Fuel Allowance made voters abandon us. The leadership needs to end its obsession with chasing the far-right on immigration, which only bolsters Reform.
“Instead, we must tackle the real causes of falling living standards and broken public services like austerity, de-industrialisation, and climate vandalism. Tax the super-rich and multinational corporations. Scrap the disability benefit cuts and the two child limit. End austerity.”
Zarah Sultana MP said: “Labour losing one of its safest seats shows what happens when a government cuts disability benefits and winter fuel payments, keeps the two-child benefit cap, and panders to anti-migrant rhetoric.”
Former Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon MP added his voice: “Labour’s defeat in Runcorn was entirely avoidable — and is the direct result of the Party leadership’s political choices. By pushing policies like cuts to disability benefits and scrapping the winter fuel allowance, the leadership is driving away our own voters — and letting Reform squeeze through.
“The Labour leadership must urgently change course and govern with real Labour values to deliver the change people are crying out for. It should start by ditching the plans to cut disability benefits and increase taxes on the wealthiest instead.
“If it fails to deliver that real change, things could get far worse, with Reform waiting in the wings. And the consequences of that would be horrific for those our Party exists to represent.”
Apsana Begum MP said: “This Labour defeat was preventable. The priority must be to drop the planned cuts to disability benefits, restore the winter fuel allowance, end all arms sales to Israel, scrap the two-child limit and tax the super-rich. These are the decisions needed to deliver the change promised.”
Labour’s re-elected Mayor of Doncaster, Roz Jones, said the Prime Minister was getting it wrong on welfare, winter fuel and National Insurance. She told the BBC: “I think national government needs to look and see what people are saying. I wrote as soon as the winter fuel allowance was actually mooted, and I said it was wrong, and therefore I stepped in immediately and used our household support fund to ensure no-one in Doncaster went cold during the winter.”
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Elections were an urgent wake-up call for Labour to change course – Neil Duncan-Jordan MP
By Neil Duncan-Jordan MP
Despite the valiant wins in the recent mayoral contests, and the close result in Runcorn and Helsby, large parts of the electoral coalition which just ten months ago delivered a historic landslide has lost faith in the Labour Party. Up until last Thursday, Runcorn was the sixteenth safest seat in Britain. And many good Labour councillors will have lost their seats across the country through no fault of their own. The time is right to now ask how did we lose so much, so quickly?
Labour’s promise of change was largely received positively. The country was looking for someone to look after them, to care, to be on their side. Change would tackle some of the longstanding problems of the last 14 years of austerity, as well as making people feel better – both materially and psychologically. There have of course been improvements in the NHS with waiting times coming down, long overdue support for renters and a host of new employment rights. But many of these changes seem some way off and have yet to land with the public. Meanwhile, a series of missteps along the way have shattered trust with our core supporters.
The decision to means test the winter fuel allowance and remove the benefit from 10 million older people remains one of the most economically illiterate and politically naive decisions that Labour has taken – just three weeks into its honeymoon period of victory. The further decisions to deny compensation to the 1950’s WASPI women and the threatened cuts to disability benefits have sent the electorate into shock. Couple these with the unusual decision to lower the NI threshold at the same time as increasing the rate for employers, and the announced cut in overseas aid, and you can begin to see how the coalition of support Labour needs has begun to unravel.
The suggestion that the answer is to copy the Right and Reform in particular, fails to understand the makeup of those voters that voted for us last July; some for the very first time. It is hard to see how Labour can out-Farage, Farage. We’ll never be able to be as right-wing or as nasty as the policies they advocate.
In fact, the way Labour will reconnect with voters is by having a strong domestic social policy.
The ambitious house building programme has got to start and focus on truly affordable council and social properties. The reform of disability benefits needs to be halted. We must get people into work by tackling the barriers they face. And we need to urgently address the scandal of child poverty by removing the two-child benefit cap.
Tackling the impact of 14 years of austerity and the cost-of-living crisis is what matters most. This of course will mean needing to look again at the government’s two fiscal rules – just like other countries have done – to be more flexible and less rigid in our approach to the economy. A healthy debate about wealth and other taxes is already underway inside our party, and this can provide some of the answers the government might need.
This change of direction is how we can begin to gain back the trust we have so quickly lost with the British people. We cannot claim to be in the service of the nation if all we seem to do is tell it to tighten its belt and hang on for bumpy ride. Mainstream political parties are notoriously bad at doing what they promise. This means those with easy answers to complicated questions can appear attractive. But we have created the vacuum into which these people now flow. There is of course at least an odds-on chance that many of the newly run Reform councils will flounder pretty quickly through a combination of incompetence, mismanagement and ridiculous cuts. But sections of the public are prepared to give them a chance. Both Labour and the Conservatives have squandered their bases and are now paying the price.
At the heart of Labour’s difficulty is an identity crisis. It isn’t exactly clear what or who is driving the agenda. Thus, you can end up with a left leaning employment policy alongside an attack on the benefits of some of the poorest in the country. It feels like it veers all over the political landscape and lacks any overarching principles to either guide it or against which policies can be judged or measured. In essence, it is hard a say that there is any such thing as Starmerism. Trying to define it is like trying to catch smoke.
Meanwhile, we are absolutely shackled to an all-consuming economic policy that privileges corporate interests above the common good. Whether it is our energy policy, housing policy, or fiscal policy, it is all geared towards greasing the wheels of corporate profiteering which so often runs counter to wider societal interests.
Still, it’s not too late to change. But claiming the answer is more of the same – and going further and faster – really fails to get why people voted Labour in the first place. Our coalition of supporters are largely drawn to our values of social justice, fairness and a society that looks after each other. The alternative is a country where we mistrust everyone, think those who have fallen on hard times are undeserving and believe the nation can be run like a business. The analogy is completely wrong. Societies have values rather than profit margins. The country voted for positive change last year, it’s time we started to show what that looks like.
- Neil Duncan-Jordan is the Labour MP for Poole. You can follow him on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram.
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