22-05-2025
Farage lives rent-free in Starmer's head
Photo by Benjamin Cremel/AFP
Keir Starmer's rough ride at a Parliamentary Labour Party meeting where one MP counted 26 questions, all critical, brought him back to Earth with a bump after his EU love-in with Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa. The PM was, another backbencher observed, the 'stranger in the room', with a mutinous air in the usual committee corridor venue and an overspill linked by video. The compliance of members of a newly installed governing party is over, jubilation replaced by fear. Nigel Farage lives rent-free in the heads of Starmer and many of his MPs. The PM's assertion that 'we can't out-Reform Reform' sounded like an admission that echoing Enoch Powell was a mistake. Next time No 10 orders MPs to jump, many will reply 'why?', said a disillusioned newbie, rather than 'how high?'.
Finding a Labour big-name defector tops Nigel Farage's shopping list, yet his arms remain open wide for desperate Conservatives – which swiftly brings us to Suella Braverman. A Farage gopher whispered Reform hopes to recruit the twice-sacked home secretary in 18 months to build a momentum that finally flattens the Tories and accelerates the challenge to Labour. The strategy is risky. Braverman is, to say the least, controversial, while Farage stuffing his ranks with even more Tories could be a lifeline for Starmer. Intriguingly a snout overheard Braverman's hubby Rael predicting she'd eventually follow when he jumped from the Tories on to the Reform bandwagon late last year.
Zillionaire Tory donor and pollfather Michael Ashcroft is messing with Badenoch's head by playing footsie with Farage. The Reform UK leader is the subject of the dark lord's next political biography and is cheerily cooperating with the former peer. My snout observed Farage and fellow self-styled 'Bad Boys of Brexit' Aaron Banks and Andy Wigmore plus Reform MP Richard Tice all graced Ashcroft's launch of an updated Starmer book. Badenoch and her senior team? Nowhere to be seen. The moneybags international man of mystery shuffling along Britain's right-wing spectrum would be a careless loss for a Tory leader previously lauded by Ashcroft in a glowing Blue Ambition biog.
Trust between No 10 and lobby hacks is close to zero, with political journalists complaining they're regularly led a merry dance by Downing Street. First, a travelling press pack was sent to the wrong Jaguar Land Rover plant for Starmer's US trade deal presser, then a group flown to Albania were given the hokey-cokey over so-called return hubs (don't mention Rwanda). Spinners briefed reporters they were definitely not on the PM's agenda, then suddenly pulled a reverse ferret. Blairite host Edi Rama saved the day by announcing Albania wouldn't accept one. All very left hand, right hand, etc.
Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
[See also: The long arm of Reform]
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