The Farage Factor

A restless section of Britain’s electorate is turning to Nigel Farage, while Labour PM Keir Starmer struggles to keep control of the political agenda.

Nigel Farage has been in British politics for three decades without once entering government. Yet, few figures have shaped the course of recent British political history more profoundly. He hounded David Cameron into calling the Brexit referendum, tormented Theresa May from the sidelines and helped Boris Johnson secure victory in 2019 by pulling votes from Labour’s traditional base.

Today, as leader of Reform UK, a party that still lacks a single seat in Parliament, he has re-emerged as the most potent threat to Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.

The latest furore came when Reform unveiled plans to rip up the right of migrants to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), bar non-citizens from accessing benefits, and force new citizens to renounce dual nationality. Farage has been careful to exempt EU citizens with “settled status,” but the thrust is unmistakable: to make lawful residency more precarious and to tighten the definition of Britishness.

Starmer, usually a lawyerly and deliberate politician, was uncharacteristically blunt in what his being dubbed as his punchiest attack on Farage. Speaking to the BBC, he branded the policy “racist” and “immoral,” warning it would “rip this country apart.” He tried to frame the argument not as one between left and right, but between decency and extremism.

Reform UK, Starmer said, had crossed a line by targeting those who had obeyed the rules and built lives in Britain. The PM’s attack on Farage comes as Labour’s annual conference opened in Liverpool under the shadow of grim polling. A YouGov survey suggested Reform would romp home were an election held tomorrow.

Yet if Reform’s proposals are extreme, Labour’s response has been reactive rather than visionary. Starmer has offered his own tweaks to ILR, though without the retrospective cruelty of Farage’s plan. His difficulty is that his immigration stance is hemmed in by competing pressures. On the one hand, he must reassure Labour’s progressive wing that he will not demonise migrants. On the other, he must persuade traditional working-class voters, many of whom deserted Labour in 2019, and who are now flirting with Reform, that he takes their concerns about immigration seriously.

Starmer inherited a party hollowed out by Jeremy Corbyn’s radicalism, battered by internal feuds and electorally humiliated. His strategy has been to present Labour as sober, managerial and safe. It worked well enough to propel him into Downing Street. But as costs rise and public services creak after 14 years of Conservative rule, patience is wearing thin. Many who backed Labour last year now grumble that change is too slow. Farage thrives on such disillusionment.

For Farage, immigration is not simply a policy area but the crucible of his political identity. He has always styled himself as a tribune of the people against a remote elite. The question thus becomes whether Labour is soft on immigration, not whether Reform’s ideas are workable.

This presents a deeper problem for Labour. Outrage at Farage’s proposals may rally activists but does little to answer voters’ frustrations. Immigration remains, for many, a proxy for anxieties about economic insecurity, overstretched housing, and strained public services. Unless Starmer can craft a convincing story, Reform will continue to siphon disenchanted voters.

The PM is not without cards to play. Britain’s economic malaise, visible in stagnant wages and crumbling infrastructure, is the legacy of Conservative misrule. A government that can deliver even modest improvements can blunt much of Reform’s appeal. But Starmer’s risk-averse style makes it harder to inspire confidence that he is prepared to remake Britain.

Farage’s party may never govern, but it can corrode Labour from the outside just as UKIP once undermined the Tories. The danger for Starmer is that denunciations of racism, however heartfelt, look like moral grandstanding rather than solutions.

Unless he can turn technocratic competence into a compelling vision, Britain’s politics will continue to be shaped not by the man in Downing Street, but by the insurgent on the sidelines.