Letters: Labour needs to stop apeing Reform and start being positive

New European

13-05-2025

This kind of stuff is forgivable only if Labour now finds another tactic to deal with the surge of the far right Reform other than donning Nigel Farage's tweeds, and keeps the far right out of power in the UK. Following Farage means eternally inching towards him as he inches further right; doing this has already left the Conservatives in ruins.
I read 'Can Starmer avoid the Farage trap?' by Tom Baldwin (TNE #434) on Sunday night, then awoke the next morning to the sound of a trap's sharp snap and a Labour prime minister saying that Britain 'risks becoming a country of strangers' unless migration is checked. It seems the very strong case for the benefits of migration in a country with an ageing population and a declining birth rate will have to be made by other parties.
All opinion polls show British voters in favour of continuing the battle against climate change, and for much closer integration with the EU. Keir Starmer must now stand up and make the positive argument for these as job-creating, economy-boosting policies; otherwise his Labour will stand for nothing.
Simone Hartley
Bold action to differentiate the Labour party from Reform could include a wealth tax, windfall taxes and acknowledgement that Farage's Brexit has and will continue to impoverish us. I'm no longer a card-carrying member and won't be until Labour becomes Labour again.
Catherine Garrett
This is a moment of great opportunity for Labour. While they hold office, and given the various crises born of Trump, Starmer could almost certainly negotiate a favourable agreement with the EU that would boost trade and thus tax receipts in short order.
The way to go about this is by first getting a series of quiet bilateral agreements-in-principle with EU leaders, and underlining Britain's seriousness by dangling a juicy carrot (while we still have something to dangle). Only then should Starmer announce his intention, admit his mistake, and put an ocean between himself and Farage.
RSP Zatzen
Labour need to be as anti-Farage as most of us are. Victories in Canada and Australia were down to being vocally against populism. So stop chasing long-gone voters. Seek new voters from progressive, outward-looking people. In other words, dump Morgan McSweeney and Maurice Glasman.
Lauren Smith
Labour's unpopularity is not about the winter fuel payment. Let's face it, the majority of the wealth in the UK is with older people.
Instead, it is about a government that is not bold enough, should be spending not cutting and has been way too cautious for a party that campaigned on change. We knew from the start that Keir Starmer was not a charismatic leader, but he needs to show some flair quickly lest the public turn away.
Adam Primhak
So how do we stop Nigel Farage? Not by supporting Labour, at least not in Wales where Senedd Cymru elections take place in less than a year.
The latest ITV opinion poll confirms that Labour has now sunk to third place behind Plaid Cymru and Reform.
Plaid Cymru is a party that has consistently opposed Brexit and is committed to the European Union. Its policies are to the left of Labour.
Its long-term goal is to win for Wales the same status as other EU nations. And in Rhun Ap Iorwerth it has a credible and talented candidate for the role of first minister. Plaid Cymru offers the only realistic chance of stopping Reform and the slide towards fascism.
Dafydd Williams
Sgeti, Abertawe
I feel deeply ashamed of my continued membership of the Labour Party. Starmer's (or should I say McSweeney's) Labour government is behaving like an austerity Tory administration.
On May 1, I voted for a Labour mayor in North Tyneside because of the success of her retiring predecessor, not because of the party's national behaviour. I am totally unsurprised that she was given a run for her money by the Reform candidate.
I shall probably continue to vote Labour on the basis that a bad Labour administration is preferable to a bad Tory one and the thought of lending support to Farage's bunch of thugs is for me an impossibility.
David Isaacs
I live in County Durham, which elected 65 Reform councillors on May 1. Quite frankly it was an accident waiting to happen. This was a frustrated reaction to years of perceived neglect in a region that has struggled for at least four decades since the collapse of its core industries.
Yet pandering to Reform's agenda is not only wrong in principle, it gives them momentum and implies they are the tail wagging the dog. They do not understand why we have high immigration – lack of suitably skilled workers for key jobs for instance – and that merely controlling numbers will achieve nothing. Reform's economic policies are Truss on speed and their culture wars just sow division.
Locally, they are threatening the council with auditors. To what end, apart from trying to prove malpractice, of which there is little evidence? Their silly war on DEI has already come up against reality. They have limited local powers on environmental matters, and cutting local expenditure when councils have struggled for years due to austerity will blow up in everyone's faces.
Mainstream parties would be wise to confront them and construct credible policies that address the most urgent issues of the day. Reform gaining local office will gradually unravel, as they are shown up as inadequate for the complex tasks we all face.
David Rolfe
Labour seem to hope that in four-and-a-bit years' time they will be rewarded by red wall voters because they didn't try to rejoin the EU, tax the wealthy or bring in PR to blunt Reform's electoral chances. If they think that it is a strategy that will work, then they are fools.
Mark Grahame
Imitating Reform will never get Labour anywhere. Reform voters will vote for the original rather than a pale copy. Labour has to be courageously supportive of the downtrodden, whether British or not, courageously left wing, courageously itself. Only then will voters have a real choice.
Jessica Gaines
Some perspective is needed on the May 1 elections. It is a bit early to be talking about the collapse of the two main parties after one local election where Reform won a few hundred seats. Labour have almost 10 times more council seats and a parliamentary majority with over four years until the next general election.
A warning shot perhaps, but this talk is all hysteria and hyperbole.
Jack Millard
One nation, one party
After reading Patience Wheatcroft's 'Labour's next nightmare could be a non-dom U-turn' (TNE #434), I've come up with an idea. Labour can reverse their plans on taxing non-doms and on private school VAT, and they can scrap net zero. Then their politics will be identical to the Tories. They can merge and both can become the largest party again!
Jonathan Porteous
When I moved to France to retire (not in a chateau, simply a rented two-bedroom flat), I didn't get to choose where I'd be taxed. There were rules which dictated that, once I'd been here six months, I'd be taxed here (and had to send a document to the UK tax office to avoid being taxed twice).
Why should there be ANY different regime for some people, just because they're rich?
Tony Jones
It's not Gen Z's fault
In 'The war on law' (TNE #434), Matthew d'Ancona repeated the claim that 52% of Gen Z believe that the UK would be better 'with a strong leader in charge, who did not have to bother with parliament and elections'.
Channel 4, who made the original claim, have never published the questionnaire on which this is based, nor the data. When the Policy Institute at King's College London sought to replicate it, they found 6%, not 52%, holding these views, and no authoritative source, including the British Election Study, has confirmed the Channel 4 claim. However, the King's study did find that Gen Z (as defined by Channel 4) had lower levels of confidence in a range of institutions.
Young people, like many of us, are frustrated by the state of Britain and impatient at the time involved in putting things right. But that does not make them supporters of a dictatorship.
Stephen McNair
Coltishall, Norfolk
Don't get mad
Tim Bradford's strip in TNE #434 promotes the same misconceptions as the musical Hamilton, beginning, 'In the 1770s, Americans fought for liberty against a mad tyrant'. Monty Python refuted this timing brilliantly in 'The Golden Age of Ballooning', as George III where Graham Chapman complains 'I don't go mad till 1800!''
The issue of mental capacities apart, Britain had had a constitutional monarchy and bill of rights since accepting William III nearly a century earlier – not that people in the country at various levels of power hadn't been trying to get round such obstacles ever since then.
But it wasn't possible for a Georgian king to be either a tyrant or an absolute monarch, no matter how much he might have wanted to be.
Bryn Hughes
Wrexham, North Wales
Best of British
After reading the latest splendid Dilettante column by Marie Le Conte on slowly becoming British (TNE #434), some humble suggestions.
Firstly, I have found using the phrase 'mustn't grumble' more than useful over the last 60-odd years. Next, Marie should try watching the peerless TV series, Dad's Army, along with the films and the recent remakes in order to be able to quote those inimitable and timeless lines.
Turning to tea, undoubtedly close to the pinnacle of Britishness, when I lived in Montreuil-sur-Mer a lovely neighbour told me that the French like Earl Grey tea as it has some bite. Hope Marie enjoys it!
Robert Boston
Kingshill, Kent
Telling it like it is
Congratulations on Svetlana Lazareva's article 'The Iranian execution machine' (Carousel, TNE #433). Most articles on the regime either don't mention or misrepresent the National Council of Resistance of Iran. A parliament in exile is an exact description of it.
Carolyn Beckingham
Lewes, East Sussex
Capital gains
Quipping about the lateness of London buses when waiting for a response from the mayor's office in the capital (Rats in a Sack, TNE #433) will ring hollow with any readers who, like me, live in the north but visit London regularly.
If buses in Cheshire ran even 20 per cent as well as those in zone 4 and 5 in London, we'd be cheering from the rooftops.
Catriona Stewart
Northwich, Cheshire
BELOW THE LINE
Comments, conversation and correspondence from our online subscribers
Re: Rats in a Sack on Reform advertising work-from-home roles while telling staff at the new councils that they must work from the office. (TNE #434). Where does all this leave its leader Nigel Farage? He rarely turns up to the Westminster office and doesn't work from his Clacton home either!
Ken Broughton
So Arron Banks has lost out on becoming the west of England mayor after admitting he didn't understand what the role entailed and wanted to do it from his chateau (Rats in a Sack TNE #434). At last, a Reform politician who actually tells the truth!
Christopher Harrison
Re: Josh Barrie on the new greasy spoons (TNE #434). There is an old truism: you are offered a last breakfast before you are shot. Who is going to go for the healthy option as against a full English?
John Tanzer
Re: 'Trump's war on language' by Peter Trudgill (TNE #434). If Donald has his way, the official language of the USA will soon be Pointing And Grunting.
Geoff Stevenson
Re: 'Plato and the piano' by Emily Herring (TNE #434). Right on! At the age of 86 I picked up where I had left off 70 years before and got a qualified piano tutor. Brahms and Chopin wouldn't care too much what I do to their music. But if I sit down for a spare 10 minutes at the piano I generally find it out turns out to be a good hour before I check how long I've been at it.
John Churchill
Re: 'What the hell happened to the bloke from Coast?' (TNE #433). To be fair to Neil Oliver, the writer Owen Jones is making a very good job of monetising the far left viewpoint. Crackpot views pay healthily on both sides of the political divide, it would seem.
Michael McKeown
Re: 'Jesus of Madrid' (TNE #433). One of the reasons I love the New European (apart from its news and analysis) is articles like this! I'd never heard of Camilo Sesto, but the story of him bringing Jesus Christ Superstar to Franco's Spain is remarkable, and something I'd never have heard about otherwise. Worth the subscription alone! Brilliant!
Richard Debonnaire
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