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The Guardian
03-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Now Farage not Starmer is feeding public's appetite for change
There was a time when any election campaign featuring the name Nigel Farage would have featured the word 'Brexit' just as prominently. And yet, almost a decade after Farage orchestrated Britain's great EU schism, and with the Reform leader emerging as a bigger political threat than ever, at this week's local elections Brexit was not a word on the lips of voters. This is all the more surprising given many votes took place in working-class settings where voters are feeling the adverse effects of a limping economy which, some say, is hampered by the UK's trading status outside the EU. But if Farage doesn't carry the damaging effects of Brexit as an electoral millstone around his neck, it may be because, according to new polling, voters don't blame him for it. In fact, they appear to blame his political opponents. Findings by the Good Growth Foundation, a thinktank with links to the Labour leadership, offer some insight. Its polling suggests that among a key group of swing voters Farage has managed to shift the responsibility for what is indisputably his lifetime achievement. The findings are based on a poll of 2,200 voters carried out by JL Partners in mid-March, including 222 voters who backed Labour in the general election but now say they support Reform. Of these Labour-Reform switchers, 39% said they believed Brexit had made the country worse – but by and large they did not blame Farage for it. Instead, 30% blamed the Conservative party and 29% blamed Boris Johnson. Only 11% said it was Farage's fault. Farage's net favourability was 46% among Labour-Reform switchers, significantly higher than his national net approval rate approval of -2%. Admirers said they thought he defended British values, 'tells it like it is' and speaks for ordinary people. One woman in Rochdale who switched her support from Labour to Reform this year said: 'Some of what he says is resonating with people, while a lot of the other, you know, MPs and stuff [are] very pasty about things.' The local election results suggest that Farage is successfully tapping into the public's appetite for change, which less than a year ago helped Keir Starmer win his landslide. Labour strategists now see Reform as their primary threat. Jonathan Ashworth, the former Labour frontbencher, said the results suggested the country was heading towards a two-party system between Labour and Reform. Over the coming weeks and months Labour figures will pore over research like this into the driving factors behind Reform's surge, but MPs are divided over the best way forward. Some want ministers to focus on bringing down legal and illegal migration while others say that voters in Runcorn and Helsby, where Reform narrowly won, most frequently cited the government's controversial benefit cuts. Keir Starmer has said this weekend that he ''gets it', suggesting he is willing to take accountability for the policy decisions that some of his MPs believe have lost the party support in northern towns and cities. For Farage, a man who has spent the majority of his career influencing policy from the sidelines, accountability for his one greatest political achievement appears to be slow in coming.
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Why is Labour getting bolder on Europe? It knows even leave voters can now see the benefits
It's nearly nine years now since Britain lost its collective mind. More than enough time, then, to put the Brexit referendum into perspective. Leavers have moved on to the point where only 11% of British voters still kid themselves that it's turned out brilliantly. It's remain politicians who had started to look strangely stuck in the past, still frightened of sounding too pro-European in case they somehow woke the monster. But joyfully – now there's a word I haven't typed much lately – it looks like something is finally shifting. A youth visa deal with the EU, giving 18- to 30-year-olds a chance to work or study abroad in member states for at least a year, is now on the table after months of ministers furiously insisting it wouldn't be. It's not the return of freedom of movement, but it's the least gen Z deserve: a chance for the kids whose horizons were so wretchedly shrunk by Covid to broaden them and have a few adventures, instead of staying home hunched over their phones. How miserable do you have to be to deny them that? And even for the over-30s it's strangely exhilarating to hear something other than a terrified, clenched-buttock 'no' to any vaguely pro-European proposal, just as it's a relief to hear Rachel Reeves publicly acknowledge that a good 'reset' deal with the EU in May is potentially bigger than a trade deal with the US (though for a British car industry facing a 25% Trump tariff, of course the latter matters). What's changed? An intriguing new deep dive into Labour leavers' and Labour-to-Reform switchers' attitudes to Europe, published this week by the Good Growth Foundation thinktank, underlines both why Labour has been so cautious for so long and why it may now be getting slightly bolder. First the bad news: perhaps partly because some now feel they were conned over Brexit, Labour leavers remain very wary of being fooled again. Though most now see the EU as more trustworthy allies than Trump's US, that confidence is easily knocked: support for a rapprochement with Europe drops quickly when focus groups are shown the kind of rightwing attack messages – charges of surrender and sellout – that would inevitably follow. They still tend to want the good bits of a deal (cheaper energy, lower food prices) without giving much up in return. But if they're only slowly warming to Europe, they are clear-eyed about the alternatives: Trump's US and Putin's Russia are both seen as greater threats to British interests than terrorism. The most compelling case for a 'reset', according to the Good Growth Foundation's director Praful Nargund, is therefore not an economic one about closer trade links making us better off – though we would be – but an emotional one about security. In a dangerous world, you huddle closer together, burying past differences. Surprisingly for anyone who remembers the days of frothing outrage over a 'common EU army', 47% of Labour leave voters now want 'a lot of' cooperation with the EU on defence and security (though they'll also want to see the British defence industry get access to a new EU fund established for re-arming Europe, to help create defence jobs back home). In this new climate of willingness to work with people we trust, a youth mobility deal could be acceptable if numbers were capped and travellers didn't get free access to services such as the NHS, the Foundation concludes. And though a quarter of Labour-to-Reform switchers still don't want the European court of justice having powers to enforce any new deal, there are potential fudges around that. If anything, the biggest red line turns out to be granting EU trawlers greater access to our waters, which is puzzling given how tiny the British fishing industry now is. But unpicking that in focus groups, it turns out that what people most fear is losing control. It's not really about fish but about a sense of keeping what's ours, not being pushed around. They need to see practical benefits from any EU deal but they also need what they didn't get from the 2016 remain campaign, which is an understanding of the gut emotions Europe evokes and what it symbolises to them. Pitch it right, and there's a deal to be done. Will Labour's courage falter at the last minute if Reform sweeps the board in this Thursday's local elections? Maybe, but the price of not being braver is also becoming clearer. A separate analysis this week from the research group Persuasion UK of where Labour's now crumbling 2024 vote has gone finds they're flaking away faster from the left than the right. Even in 'red wall' seats, Labour waverers are now three times more likely to switch to the Liberal Democrats and twice as likely to move to the Greens – both more explicitly pro-European parties – than to Reform. A deal to let young Europeans travel, plus a bit of realism about a Trump trade deal, isn't exactly the dramatic pivot back to Europe that some have longed to see. It certainly won't be enough for militant rejoiners. But remain voters tend to be pragmatic by nature – it's why we voted remain, for heaven's sake – and even these baby steps beat years of Labour jumping nervously at its own shadow. Like the spring sunshine, maybe this unexpected warmth towards our neighbours won't last. But if there's one thing to be learned from living on a cold, rainy island, it's to enjoy the sun while you can. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
Sky News
27-03-2025
- Business
- Sky News
How was the spring statement? Three experts give their verdicts on key policy areas
Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her spring statement this week. Now we've heard the detail we've picked out three key policy areas from Labour's plan for change - health, growth and housing - and asked three experts to give their verdict. Here's their view on how the government is doing so far: Health The pledge: Ending hospital backlogs to meet the NHS standard of 92% of patients in England waiting no longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment. The verdict: I think the critical thing was the financially challenging environment we find ourselves in is going to be even more challenging next year and the year after. So, we're talking about an unprecedented squeeze on the overall amount of money available to the health service. The NHS leaders I represent are having to make cuts of 6%, 7%, 8% in their overall budgets, but they know now that the year after and the year after that are going to be even tougher. 5:04 How about NHS modernisation? If we don't do things differently, I fear what we'll see is what we've seen in the past, which is more money going into acute hospitals. This is the most expensive, least effective way of providing healthcare. Rather, more money should be going into primary, into community. So we really have to accelerate the reform process if we're going to be able to get more with less. The score: 7/10 …but we're waiting for a 10-year plan, and until we really know what the plan is, it's very difficult to judge. Growth The pledge: Raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so working people have more money in their pocket as we aim to deliver the highest sustained growth in the G7. The expert: Praful Nargund, director and founder of the Good Growth Foundation The verdict: In the short term, it's still very hard for the economy. I mean, you're looking at the OBR downgrading growth, halving their growth estimate for this year. You have a better picture longer term. You see the housing and planning reforms, meaning gains in productivity and growth. You're seeing household disposable income potentially rise at the end of the parliament by £500 per household. What about the cost of living? People want to see change more quickly. They want to see benefits more quickly from an economy changing. Also, we're far too exposed to volatility and instability in the world, especially with Trump tariffs coming down the line. The score: 7/10 Long term some really good reforms are coming. Short term we want to see a whole government approach to getting growth happening very soon. 10:47 Housing The pledge: Building 1.5 million homes in England and fast-tracking planning decisions on at least 150 major economic infrastructure projects - more than the last 14 years combined. The expert: Clare Miller, chief executive at Clarion Housing Group The verdict: There was the announcement from the chancellor that she's putting an extra £2bn of capital investment into the affordable homes programme. Investment in that area will enable us to be able to build more homes. However, it's not a silver bullet. And clearly what we need is a long-term solution in order to enable charitable housing associations like my own, and to be able to work with the government to deliver over the longer term. What do you think about leasehold properties? What the government would like to do is to move to a common hold form of tenure, which potentially gives the residents living in those blocks more control and more say over the services that are delivered to those residents. I think that that is a positive step. But we will have to see how it is rolled out. The score:???
