by Chris Harris 18/8/26
I should probably establish something from the start. I am not a Reform voter. Politically, I sit considerably further to the left, and there is plenty about Nigel Farage and Reform that I disagree with, but also some things that make common sense. I am not a tribalist, a pragmatist, maybe. But politics becomes pointless if we cannot acknowledge when the other side is doing something effectively. Right now, whether you like it or not, Reform is playing a smarter political game than Labour.
Andy Burnham arrived in Downing Street promising to turn Britain around. He had something every new Prime Minister would love: a period when people were genuinely interested in what he intended to do, followed almost immediately by the political silly season. Parliament went into recess, Westminster emptied out and Burnham had a remarkably clear stage on which to define his government. Yet a month later, I’m still struggling to identify the three or four big policies that tell us what a Burnham government actually stands for. Of course nobody expects a new Prime Minister to transform the country in four weeks, but you can certainly establish a direction in that time. He gave out some very small free gifts to settle himself in and garner a small and underwhelming Burnam bounce.
Into that vacuum has stepped Reform. Whatever you think of its welfare proposals, they are certainly not timid. Reform is talking about dramatically reducing the welfare bill, restructuring benefits and placing much greater obligations on people deemed capable of working. There are serious questions about whether the figures add up, who would lose out and whether vulnerable people could be unfairly caught in the net. Those questions need answering. But politically, Reform has achieved something important: everybody is talking about its ideas.
Welfare is clever territory because public opinion is far more complicated than politicians sometimes pretend. I wouldn’t claim that most people support every detail of Reform’s package, but there is clearly widespread frustration with a system many believe isn’t working properly. Plenty of people on the left believe that those capable of working should work while also believing that genuinely disabled and vulnerable people deserve proper and far better protection. Those two positions are perfectly compatible.
What makes Reform’s timing particularly interesting is that Nigel Farage should arguably be having a rather uncomfortable summer himself. Questions surrounding the £5 million gift he received and the parliamentary standards investigation ought to provide his opponents with plenty of ammunition. I have no idea whether Reform’s welfare announcement was deliberately intended to change the subject, and without evidence it would be wrong to suggest that it was. But the effect is undeniable. Instead of everybody discussing Farage’s problems, everybody is discussing Farage’s policies. That is smart politics.
He has moved from being the subject of the story to the person driving it. Rather than spending August answering awkward questions, his minions are appearing on television explaining how Britain should reform welfare while Labour is being asked to respond to him. If Labour had pulled off the same manoeuvre, Labour supporters would quite rightly be applauding it.
That’s why Labour’s apparent absence is so frustrating. MPs and ministers are entitled to holidays, obviously, but politics doesn’t stop because Parliament is in recess. Farage may never be more vulnerable than he is now. Reform is attempting to transform itself from a protest movement into a credible government in waiting, and this should be the moment when Labour relentlessly tests its finances, personalities and policies. Instead, Reform has been allowed to walk onto an almost empty political stage and grab the microphone.
The bigger problem for Burnham isn’t actually Reform’s welfare policy. It’s the vacuum that allowed Reform to dominate the conversation in the first place. Burnham came into Downing Street promising change. Fine. But what are the defining projects? Housing? The NHS? Growth? Immigration? Welfare? Infrastructure? Choose three or four and hammer them home until people who rarely follow politics can tell you what this government is trying to achieve.
There is an irony here because I would much rather see a centre-left government setting the agenda than Nigel Farage. But wanting Labour to succeed doesn’t mean pretending it is succeeding when it is being outmanoeuvred. Reform has spotted an empty political stage, chosen an issue that cuts across traditional party loyalties and produced proposals bold enough to force everybody else to respond.
During Burnham’s first August in office, it is Farage who has managed to get Britain talking about what he wants to do. Andy Vibes can ‘vibe’ people only so long before that quickly withers, and problems are already creeping up with him that he and the Labour machinery are failing to deal with.
Begs the question: was Sir Keir relatively hapless, or was it simply the Labour Party machinery?
#British Politics #Labour Party #Conservative Party #Reform Party #Andy Burnham
