Trevor Fisher argues for a broad front to combat Reform
The biggest political development since the 2024 election is the breakthrough of Reform UK. The Farage party has been ahead in the opinion polls in every poll since the May County Council elections, which gave them platforms in over a dozen councils. However, this has been fed by the failure of the Starmer government, which has not only failed to build on the limited achievement of the 2024 election when it won a parliamentary majority but also has no real base in the country, but has encouraged attacks on Labour values, which has immediately led to the formation of a new, Corbyn-led party with substantial support. It seems that within Number 10, the dominant project has a destructive element which would actually welcome a split in the ranks.
The most ominous aspect of this is the use of suspensions to discipline the PLP. An article on the Bylines network of 30th July, written by Adam Bienkov, quoted an unnamed MP as saying the purging of the hard left had not alarmed the soft left and its allies, but the latest moves, which saw Rachael Maskell suspended, had opened many eyes and “the soft left are beginning to realise what’s going on”. What’s going on is a big topic, but what is driving an unprecedented attack on pluralism and open debate is a mistaken view of the poor Starmer vote last year.
The failure of 2024
While it is welcome that Labour defeated the Conservatives and secured over 400 MPs, this was not a landslide in genuine terms, and was not a real mandate – a claim made by the new Secretary of the national Fabian Society. No Prime Minister of any party has ever achieved a parliamentary majority on less than 34% of the vote share, and a vote which was historically low at 59.98%. Four in ten voters did not cast a vote, and this is one reason for Reform’s breakthrough. They are drawing in voters who are not habitual voters, especially in working-class areas.
More attention needs to be paid to Reform UK, but the key issue is the Leadership Project, which, despite repeating much of the control freakery of thirty years ago, is notably mistaken about its apparent success in 2024.
The front bench has proclaimed that it won the election by overcoming Corbyn’s extremism that alienated voters, who finally returned to voting Labour. The House of Commons library shows this to be false, as the voting data shows the broad front party led by Corbyn versus the Starmer vote was as follows.
2017…12,877, 918
2019…10,269,051
2024…9,708,716
Thus Corbyn won more votes in his elections than Starmer did in 2024. And since achieving a mere 34% of the vote, Labour has lost support in opinion polls, which now regularly show Reform UK ahead by a consistent margin. In power Labour has been incompetent, with the national debt rising to £51 billion and Starmer trying to suppress justified opposition to his reactionary politics rooted in Blairism. The abysmal attack on Palestine Action’s peaceful protest and the failure to justify the claim of extremism should raise concern about the relevant law being the one passed by Blair in 2000. Further, Wales is so alienated that the Welsh leader stated in the Observer of 10th August that she will not be following the Starmer line. It may be too late for Welsh Labour, especially given that the Corbynites have well over half a million expressions of interest across the UK.
This does not mean that Corbyn is in a good place to launch a party – an early poll showed a left party gaining a 10% vote share, partly by taking Green votes (down from 9% to 5%) and lowering the SNP vote from 3% to 2%. A new left party once launched may go up or down, and with 600,000 supporters (but not yet paid members), it has a real chance to gain more members than Labour. Clearly, the Starmerite cry that they won back lost support has no basis in reality and their failure to hold the party together as a broad front has the potential to put Farage in Number 10.
How to derail Reform UK
Electorally, Corbyn is unlikely to stop Reform’s increasing vote. There is an old Labour element, particularly in declining former industrial cities, but the attempt of Starmer to show he is tougher than Farage in bashing migrants and other sections of the population, who are scapegoated by the far right, has failed. As Neil Kinnock said in the July Prospect magazine, “If people are offered two versions of a political brand, they will always choose the genuine one”. But this does not mean Corbyn and Sultana can stop Reform’s advance, and between now and November, they have to build their own brand, which in the past has divided a highly factionalised hard left.
In the short term, the essential is to create a broad front alliance similar to the Anti Nazi League, to unite separate groups in developing a media strategy which can pose a progressive agenda. As a writer for the Open Democracy website wrote on 11th August, the far right, even when outnumbered, believe they are winning. No effective counter to the far right is coming from the Labour Party, and what a left party can do will be limited if it is not to split Labour at the ballot box. A loose coalition of activists working to expose Reform UK at the local level, particularly in the 12 council areas they now control, is workable. Under a working title of “Checking Reform UK”, a broad front could be attempted. Neither Starmer nor Corbyn has the potential to worry Farage, so grassroots activists will have to do it.