Looking both left and right
Farage was once known for campaigning in Labour’s old discomfort zones like immigration. Now he also speaks of “industrializing Britain” in language once held firmly on the left. Union shop stewards are backing Reform; there is talk that some will even stand for Farage’s party.
A survey conducted last week by pollsters Find Out Now, for the lobbying firm Apella Advisors, suggested two-thirds of Reform voters support public ownership of sectors such as rail, water and energy. Labour is nationalizing the first, but not the other two.
One think tank official said: “There is a battle going on in the [Labour] Party, which was already there before this … about what direction does that mean you go in?
“There will be those who say you have to go more populist, particularly on the cultural issues — on migration, on asylum, on sovereignty, on net zero.
“And there’ll be others who say the root cause of this is broken public services, a broken economic system that doesn’t give decent jobs to everyone — and to deliver on that, you need to be more progressive, interventionist and ambitious economically.”
Boxed in
Labour officials may well insist they can do both. Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney has allowed this concept to take voice through Blue Labour, the economically left-wing but socially conservative group led by Labour peer Maurice Glasman, and has taken action such as targeting rogue bosses of water firms.
