𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It was off to Liverpool last week for the Labour conference – but if, as one of the party’s former Prime Ministers once suggested, “a week is a long time in politics” – the last 14 months must have served as an eternity to this embattled one. And in the city known as the birthplace of The Beatles, Sir Keir Starmer arrived desperately in need of one of the band’s greatest hits, namely “Help!”

Because somehow a party that was swept into power on the back of a vote that crushed all opposition has slumped in the polls to an unprecedented degree and is led by the most unpopular Prime Minister in polling history. And that includes Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair after Iraq and Boris Johnson after Covid. That takes some doing!

But back to those polls which starkly spell out how they are haemorrhaging votes and which are all backed by the nation’s leading poll watcher, Professor Sir John Curtice.

They say that to the left, traditional Labour supporters are deserting the party to move to the Lib Dems or to the Green Party. And to the right, the rampaging Reform UK party is feeling hugely emboldened by their surge in support which is likely, in turn, to have been bolstered by Sir Keir’s calamitously ill-advised assault on some of its policies.

For reasons only known presumably to the PM and his team, they decided the perfect curtain-raiser to their annual gathering would be to attack Reform’s “racist policies” concerning attempts to control illegal immigration.

This unutterably insulting slur on people who might support the policy is unforgivable, and mealy-mouthed explanations by a platoon of Labour apologists has done nothing to dissipate the legitimate fury.

If you’re still undecided about Sir Keir’s approach, ask yourself this: if you want to attract someone to come back and support you, how wise is it to declare they support racist views? Because believe me, telling someone they are racist is not exactly handing out the hand of welcome.

Vast tracts of votes have been lost from so much of Labour’s traditional heartland of the North. Decent, hard-working people who believed in Brexit and who then watched in horror as supercilious politicians in Westminster, including our current Prime Minister, strove tirelessly to undo the democratic mandate.

They then – in his own words! – “leant” Boris Johnson their votes believing in levelling up, only to be betrayed again. Little wonder then they are now open to the entreaties of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

But having been able to speak with ministers, MPs and party workers at the conference, I can now share with you the thinking behind the PM’s extraordinary attack on Reform UK policies.

In the planning since the summer the sense is the party faithful – and always remember these conferences are primarily designed to give the decent party workers, door-knockers and canvassers a massive adrenaline injection – needed a “target.”

Framing Mr Farage and Reform sets up a convenient head-to-head for next year’s local elections in London, much of England, Wales and Scotland.

Early indications suggest the policy is at best ill-advised, or possibly even disastrous. To continue The Beatles theme: the PM arrived hoping the party could ‘Come Together.’ The danger is he leaves as the ‘Nowhere Man.’