Labour has been urged to stop "shying away" from attacking Reform UK policies if they are to win the next General Election.
Nigel Farage's party has begun putting pressure on Keir Starmer's party across the country by setting up about 120 local branches to focus on Labour-held seats, mainly in south Wales and the north of England.
Reform UK came second place in 98 constituencies during the July election and in 89 of these cases, it was second to Labour. A further 60 of these were in the north of England and 13 were in Wales. The party also came within 20 votes of defeating Richard Holden, the Tory party chairman at the time, in Basildon & Billericay.
Its predecessor, the Brexit Party came in second place in three constituencies in 2019, while Ukip came second in 120 constituencies in 2015.
One Labour MP who faced a close race with a Reform candidate told The Times: "Reform is dangerous if we don’t take them on now.
"I’m not convinced we got it right in the General Election. I think there was this attitude that they’re taking more votes off the Tories than they are at Labour, so we shouldn’t challenge them.
"We were willing to stay quiet while the Tories morphed into Reform, but we can’t shy away in the future.
"One of the reasons Ukip didn’t do as well as they were hoping to in the 2015 election is because this video went round of Farage talking about an American-style healthcare system...he learnt from that, because this time he stepped around it in debates, but fundamentally Reform’s policies mean a much smaller state and a much-reduced ability to spend."
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One MP said the increase in Reform members seems mostly driven by “keyboard warriors" adding that "many of these are in their Transformers pyjamas in their mum’s basement. But what we haven’t seen yet is Reform on the doorstep or speaking to voters."
Think-tank Labour Together, directed by Jonathan Ashworth, who lost his Leicester South seat to Independent MP Shockat Adam, has commissioned polling analysis to identify where the party lost votes and to create a strategy to win next time.
The first part of the report will be presented at the party conference in Liverpool this month. It will show that those who switched from Conservative to Labour were the decisive group in the constituencies that mattered, more so than Tories staying at home or switching to Reform.
It's not just Reform who pose a threat to Labour as the Greens came in second place in 40 constituencies, 18 of which were in London. In all but one of these seats, it was second to Labour. The Greens came second in three seats in 2019, none in 2017 and five in 2015.
Excluding Brighton Pavilion, which they have held since 2010, the Green Party significantly increased its vote share in the seats it won in 2024, while the Conservative and Labour vote shares decreased.
In North Herefordshire, the Liberal Democrat vote share also declined, and Reform won 16 per cent of the vote share.
Party co-leader Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central, said: "We are really delighted by the level of trust and support we have seen for the Greens, not just in our four target seats but in constituencies up and down the country."
from GB News https://ift.tt/ITlj5Vo
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