Sir John Curtice warned Sir Keir Starmer that focusing on Reform UK is a “mistake” for Labour. The polling guru said that Nigel Farage’s insurgent party is the “principal threat” at the next election but is “far from the only threat”.
He suggested Labour should not “repeat the Tories’ mistake” of focusing on immigration, and that improving the economy and the NHS was more likely to return voters to the party. Speaking at a fringe event at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, Sir John said: “It is a mistake to believe that this party’s only problem is Reform. It isn’t. Actually, you are losing more support to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens collectively, much more support, than you are to Reform.”
It comes as the Prime Minister has repeatedly attacked the insurgent party, branding its plan to scrap indefinite leave to remain for migrants as “racist” in his latest swipe.
In a bleak assessment of Labour’s first year in office, Sir John said the party had suffered “the worst ever fall in support for a newly elected government”, having entered power on the lowest share of the vote for a winning party and facing a “deeply unhappy” electorate.
Asked whether there was any hope that Labour could turn it around, he replied: “The honest answer to that is no.”
He added that “clearly, if by 2029 the economy is turned around and if by 2029 the waiting lists are way, way back down”, Labour might be able to recover its position.
But he also cast doubt on whether Sir Keir would be able to capitalise on such a situation, saying he had cast himself as “the friendly local plumber” fixing issues with “policy pipes”, when voters really wanted their leaders to be “the architect of Valhalla”.
Sir John said: “You need to do more than change the reality, you also have to influence perception.
“And clearly, the question that is being raised about the current Labour leadership is, does it have the ability to change the mind?”
Saying people still did not know what the PM stood for, he said: “The mystery of Keir Stamer, who is he, what does he stand for, that mystery, we are maybe two thirds of the way through the novel, but we are still not sure where the body lies.”
