Reform UK’s constant stoking of the culture war is a distraction tactic, while their lack of a plan for local government is their Achilles’ heel.
Reform UK’s success in last week’s local elections must be a wake-up call for Labour, and the Left more broadly. They won 677 council seats and took control of 10 councils. They also won the mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire, and the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helbsy. With results like these, sitting back until next year’s local elections — or even worse, banking on blocking Farage from reaching No 10 in 2029 — are not options.
Labour is hesitant to confront Reform UK head-on, opting instead to echo some of its populist talking points in the hope of holding onto voters. In contrast, the Lib Dems and Greens are pushing back more forcefully. The challenge now is clear: how can the Left (including Labour) build on that resistance and present a credible alternative to Reform UK’s vision?
Here are five lessons the Left must learn from Reform UK’s local election wins.
1. The fightback against Reform starts now
Polls suggested Reform’s rise, and last week’s local election results confirmed it. The Left, especially Labour, can’t afford to wait and watch Reform’s next steps. While it’s true that Reform UK would dismantle the NHS if in power, focusing solely on single issues like this won’t be enough to sway voters ahead of the 2029 general election. To pretend it is, would be to sleepwalk our way to a Reform UK government. Ed Davey has shown what it looks like to repeatedly call out Nigel Farage’s divisive politics. When Farage spoke out about how children are ‘overdiagnosed’ with special needs and mental health issues, Davey immediately set the record straight.
In a BBC interview, he said: “Nigel Farage knows nothing about this. I’d rather like to speak to the experts, […] people who really understand these issues”. He proudly stands up for internationalist values and positions his party against destructive nationalist politics. While not popular among everyone (well, Brexiteers), the Lib Dems want the UK to seek a new customs union and eventually rejoin the EU. Voters know where Davey stands, and this will have played a part in the Lib Dems’ strong showing at the polls last week.
2. The culture war is a distraction tactic, but the Left can’t ignore it
Reform’s “war on woke” marches on, and their recent local election successes have given them a mandate they so eagerly wanted to push this agenda. Take Andrea Jenkyns’ pledge to remove diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) officers at Lincolnshire County Council, where there are checks notes, no DEI officers employed. Despite the facts, the emotionally charged narrative “lets get rid of wasteful diversity and inclusion measures bankrupting our councils” remains far more persuasive. Or Reform’s policy to ban all flags except Union Jack, St George’s Cross and county flags – a symbolic (nationalistic) gesture with no real substance. The Left needs to stand up for meaningful inclusion of people from all different backgrounds, it needs to be unapologetically anti-racist, and highlight that aside from being morally reprehensible, targeting trans people —who make up less than 1% of the population— with policies such as banning “transgender ideology” in schools, is not a good use of council time or money. Progressives left the culture war chat a while ago, it’s time we rejoin and end this harmful discourse for good.
3. Reform’s lack of a plan is their Achilles’ heel
The Left must not only call out the distraction tactics, like the ongoing culture war Reform is stoking, but repeatedly point out what the party has not achieved. Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, couldn’t point to a single achievement the party has made in local government. At the time, they had 128 councillors, that number increased by another 677 last week. With no clear policies for local government, it is even more challenging to hold them to account. Yet their lack of a plan is also their achilles heel. History shows us what happens when a party has no real plan—just look at UKIP’s time in control of Thanet in 2015. Their lack of policies caused big rifts and squabbles between UKIP councillors over plans for the Manston airport site, defections, and ultimately, their loss of Thanet—before they briefly regained it and lost it again.
4. Reform’s claims it represents white working class voters must be challenged
Reform is positioning itself as a party that stands for white working-class people who feel neglected, living in towns and cities that they believe have seen better times, where their job prospects fall short of expectations. This is a con. Farage is public school educated, and he has pocketed almost £900,000 from second jobs since last July, the most out of any MP. By peddling anti-migrant narratives, demonising people who have fled war using the only option open to them, and risking their lives (or dying) in small boats on the channel, he’s lining his pockets. But none of this changes the circumstances of working class people who are struggling. He talks about the migrants being housed in hotels at the cost of £2 billion to the taxpayer. White British homeless people are also housed in hotels and private rented accommodation which are costly to councils and the taxpayer. This isn’t a result of misuse of funds—it’s the outcome of Margaret Thatcher’s policies that forced councils to sell off housing and to this day have made it almost impossible for councils to build social housing. It’s a legacy of privatisation that must be addressed, but it’s not part of some grand conspiracy.
5. Political reforms, not Reform UK
What we saw at last week’s local elections was mass disillusionment with politics. People have thought politicians are “all the same” for some time now. That disillusionment has now hardened into anger that can’t be ignored. Reform UK came along and pointed out everything is “broken”- and their message resonated with many voters. The current political landscape is fragmented, leading to parties winning with smaller majorities and ushering in “the age of five-party politics”. We saw this in action with elections like the West of England mayoralty, where Labour’s Helen Godwin won on just 25% of the vote. Last year, Labour won the general election with just a third of the vote. Labour needs to respond to this by looking at electoral reform and introducing proportional a voting system. A recent poll by Survation found that 64% of people believe there is a need to address the electoral system before the next general election. As one of the two major parties in the first-past-the-post system, Labour had previously been reluctant to embrace voting reform. But now, it is a pressing issue, and the future of our democracy is dependent on political reform. That also means tackling murky financing in politics and countering disinformation in election campaigns. The Left can’t cling to power, we must win it. And when we do, we must use it for good.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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