Like a driver hurtling towards a cliff-edge who chooses to press the accelerator, Labour risks responding to last week’s elections in precisely the wrong way. It has time to draw back from the precipice, but not much.
The argument that needs to be scotched goes like this. Reform is now Labour’s main threat. Its voters are committed Brexiters. Any whiff of friendship with Brussels will cost the party votes it can’t afford to lose. At the coming the UK-EU summit, Keir Starmer must make clear that his red lines are bright, thick and permanent.
Here are three reasons why the party’s leadership needs to tackle that argument head on.
First, Reform is not the only threat to Labour and may not even be the biggest one.
YouGov consistently finds that Labour is losing fewer votes to the right (Conservative and Reform than to the left (Liberal Democrats, Greens and SNP). The more Labour bends towards Reform’s narrow nationalism, the more it will alienate progressive voters.
Last week’s local elections make that point with remarkable clarity. This is how seats changed since the same counties were last contested four years ago:
The nationalists parties got a total of 996 seats—up three from 2021. The progressive parties got a total of 548, up 20.
In short, in traditionally Conservative England (remember there were no council elections in London, Scotland, Wales or any of England’s major cities), there was virtually no left-right swing in seats won and lost. The movements were almost all from the traditional big two (down 861 seats) to insurgent parties (up 884).
Those figures disguise lots of cross-currents. Plainly Labour lost votes to Reform last week. But the core truth remains. Labour needs to fight on two fronts; but it needs to worry at least as much, and probably more, about preserving its progressive base.
Second, Reform voters are not uniformly hostile to immigrants or the EU
We have long known that most voters think Brexit was a mistake. For the past two years, YouGov has found consistently that just 30-35 per cent think the United Kingdom was right to vote to leave the EU, while 50-55 per cent think we were wrong.
To be fair to Labour’s pro-Brexit lobby, 80 per cent of Reform voters still think Brexit was right. That, though, is not the end of the story. When YouGov explored what should happen now, almost half of Reform voters either support rejoining the single market (22 per cent) or don’t take sides (23 per cent). Brexit still matters to many Reform supporters, but not as much as it did; and its new converts are fired by more conventional issues such as the winter fuel alliance, our sluggish economy and the cost of living.
Reform voters also have more complex attitudes to immigration than might be supposed. Yes, they want the numbers down. But when Ipsos tested views about 13 specific immigrant groups, a more nuanced picture emerges. Reform voters would like fewer bankers, students and lorry drivers coming to Britain. They are divided on restaurant workers. But most oppose any reduction in the numbers coming to work in care homes or as doctors, nurses, engineers, seasonal fruit pickers, academics, teachers, computer specialists, or in construction. Their big beef is with asylum seekers. Reform voters think they comprise 51 per cent of all immigrants arriving here. The true share is 11 per cent.
With immigration, as with views about Europe, it’s a matter of framing. Progressives could not win the Brexit argument when it was about “taking back control” or NHS funding, Attitudes started to change when voters experienced the reality. And it’s one thing when the immigration debate is about numbers and small boats, and quite another when it’s about the people who can help us thrive—especially if we succeed in keeping out those we don’t want while welcoming those we do.
So Europe and immigration are battles that progressives can win, or at least neutralise. The battles won’t be easy. They need time. Which leads us to the third reason why Labour should abandon its Brexit red lines.
What will decide the next election is not what voters think in 2025, but Labour’s record in 2029.
There won’t be a general election next week, next month or next year. What matters will be voters’ verdict on Labour in four years’ time. Will living standards be rising? Will schools and the NHS be doing better? Will enough houses have been built? Will poverty have been reduced? Will Labour have a good story to tell on taxes and public services?
These questions boil down to a single big challenge. If the economic growth picks up significantly, the answer to all those questions can be “yes”. If it doesn’t, every answer is likely to be “no”.
Rachel Reeves accepts this. She is trying to do something about it. But the Office of Budget Responsibility doubts her measures will help much. It predicts that they will add only 0.2 per cent to the growth rate. Public finances in 2029 will still be tight. Moreover, the OBR did its sums before President Trump decided to mess up the world’s trading systems. A revised OBR forecast would make far gloomier reading.
However, another OBR calculation points to the solution. It estimates that Brexit has reduced Britain’s long-term productivity by 4 per cent. Other estimates suggest an even greater cost. That’s £100bn-plus a year, or around £4,000 for every household. Imagine how much the government could do if it could achieve those figures in time for the next election. And imagine the story Labour could tell—success, thanks to reversing the damage done by leaving the EU. Labour needs to fight on two fronts; this is how to win on both. Good luck to Tory and Reform candidates who then promise to reinstate full-fat Brexit.
In practice what can be done, short of rejoining the EU, which is not yet a practical proposition? On 19th May, a UK-EU summit will be held in London. All sorts of issues are on the agenda, from fishing to defence. Starmer will say they amount to a “reset” of London’s relations with Brussels. But there is only one reset that would make a real difference: the restoration of completely frictionless trade across the Channel and Irish Sea.
This goes way beyond anything Starmer has said. And it has to be done soon. Let’s assume that a deal can be agreed in principle on 19th May, hammered out in detail over the next 12 months and implemented by the end of next year. It would then take time for trade to be revived, and further time for the statistics to confirm how much things have improved. With luck, a deal done this month would be seen to be working in time for the next election. It will take some years to recover the full 4 per cent productivity loss. But even a 2 per cent boost by 2028 would make a big difference—far bigger than anything else Reeves has proposed. But unless the scale of our ambition is made clear at the coming summit, it will be too late. The economy won’t recover enough. Labour will be judged to have failed. It will be voted out of office.
One final thought. The next election is likely to be held 13 years after the Brexit referendum. By then, I reckon that four million Leave voters will have died, and a similar number of pro-Europeans will have reached voting age. Taking account of the minorities at both ends of the age range, a 1.3m Leave majority in 2016 will have turned into a four million Remain majority, even if none of the surviving voters from nine years ago have changed sides.
