Neil Kinnock warns Labour to heed nationalist threat posed by Nigel Farage | General election 2024
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Neil Kinnock has warned his party not to ignore the nationalist threat posed by Nigel Farage, as anxiety grows in Labor ranks that Reform UK could pose a long-term threat to them as well as Conservatives.
The former Labor leader told the Guardian he wanted Labor to turn its guns on Farage’s party in the final week of the election campaign, saying the populist right could gain a foothold in the UK as it has elsewhere much of Europe.
Labor is accused of don’t run against Farage because the Reform Party seemed to be getting more votes than the Conservatives. But with the reform predicted by some pollsters to win more than a dozen seats in parliament next week, Kinnock said Labor must start taking the threat seriously.
“There is no next time. It [targeting Reform] it has to start now,” he said. “We have to fight this populist nationalism with words, explaining to people what these people are, not just who they are.
“People like Farage love personal attention like all narcissists, so we need to focus on explaining what they are and all their inconsistencies and lies. They plant and reap lies – they always have.”
Kinnock added that if Labor was overly cautious in government, this would play into Reform’s narrative that there was little difference between the two main parties. “Absolutely vital, [the populist right] we have to fight back with action,” he said. “It means implementing change that is positive and cumulative and driven by strong purpose in service to the community.”
Farage and his group were recently criticized for undercover recording which showed two of his party activists using abusive language while campaigning for him in Clacton in Essex. The dispute threatens to overshadow what was otherwise a strong campaign for reform, which has seen him rise from around 11% in the polls to 16%.
Kinnock compared Farage’s response to the Clacton row – inserting ambiguity and attack – to that of Donald Trump.
“This is straight out of Trump Towers. This is the theatrical Farage. He is doubling down on his claims that Channel 4 has hired an actor,” he said. “This is what nationalist populists do over and over again. They are fooling people and you can add Boris Johnson to that.”
Labor was this week accused of failing to fight Farage in Clacton after the party’s candidate was instructed to leave the constituency over the belief he was “distracting” Keir Starmer’s campaign. The local Labor campaign in Clacton said it had been banned from printing leaflets, blocked from using campaign software and had access to campaign social media revoked – its X posts had been deleted.
Asked this week if campaigners were allowed to campaign in Clacton, Starmer said: “The head of operations tells people where we most want them to go and fight, but we have to fight in Clacton – of course we are .”
He criticized Farage on Friday for creating an atmosphere where racist comments were tolerated, saying it was a “test of leadership” for Farage.
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Many candidates and pollsters believe Reform is likely to do better than expected next week and could win more than a dozen seats. MRP Poll by Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now this week showed Reform is targeting 18 seats, with Farage, former party leader Richard Tice and former Tory MP Lee Anderson expected to win.
Labor candidates for some target seats say they are also beginning to worry that many of the undecided voters they hoped would vote for them are instead being lured by the reform. “There’s still a bit more undecided voters than we’d like, so we’re getting more nervous the closer we get,” said one. “We meet a lot of people who are not Tories but are deciding between Labor and Reform.”
A Labor spokesman said the new party was eating up votes in key target seats such as Great Yarmouth and Ashfield. “It is only now that the serious threat of reform is something we are looking at,” they said. “It only becomes a problem if things are closer than polls suggest they will be.”
Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said Labor needed to be alert to the appeal the reform had among voters, particularly in “red wall” constituencies. “In the longer term it will be a problem for Labour,” he said. “The party is likely to find itself caught between members and activists who are left/liberal and the kinds of voters it won in this election, many of whom are far less so.”
Kinnock warned his party that leaving the Conservatives to fight the Farage threat would backfire. “I hope that [the Tories] they will oppose Faragism, but they have not shown the courage to fight and they will have to,” he said.
Labor officials say they are alive to the risk Reform poses and say they plan to stand up to Farage and his policies “from day one” if they come to power. “If Labor wins the election, we’d like to make sure we stop Farage,” the insider said. “We need to meet voters where they are, tell them how we’re going to address their concerns, and then show them we’re going to do it.”
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