David Miliband and one of the leading think tanks of the Tony Blair era have sounded the alarm about the threat to Labour as Reform UK recruits voters hungry for change.Centre-Left parties such as Labour are in danger of extinction and must “reinvent or die”, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
It points to this month’s string of electoral contests – which saw Labour lose the Runcorn and Helsby by-election to Nigel Farage’s party – as evidence people are turning to the likes of Reform as the “go-to” parties of change. It says Labour took “just one in five votes” with Reform winning “almost one in three”.
Former Foreign Secretary Mr Miliband, who was once seen as a potential prime minister, warned that parties such as Labour are “perceived to be defending the status quo, even as voters say it is failing”.
Writing in the foreword to the IPPR’s report, he took a pot shot at populist parties, claiming they offer “nostalgia” and “change in the form of blowing up the system”.
But a Reform spokesman shot back: “Reform UK has been tearing down Labour’s Red Wall and the results from the local elections are just proof of the public’s growing frustration with Starmer’s government. Labour have consistently betrayed the interests of the British public and ignored working class people to push their own hypocritical agenda.
“The two party system is dead and only Reform can fix broken Britain.”
The IPPR states that since the 1980s the share of votes in western Europe and North America for centre-Left parties has fallen by more than a quarter. Meanwhile, it says the share for populist parties increased two and half times.
It warns that centre-Left parties are losing the support of people who did not go to university.
“People who have not been to university, historically associated with left-leaning parties, increasingly align themselves with the populist right, while the opposite is true for graduates,” the IPPR states.
It argues the collapse in working class support for the Left has “given populist right parties an opening to steal the left’s historical claim to being for the many, not the few”.
A Labour MP said: “Reform is a threat as long as Labour looks too London-centric.”
He claimed there are people throughout the Red Wall “willing to give Labour a chance” but the party is “not giving them the right message at the moment”.
Across Europe, there is concern that young people are deserting parties like Labour.
The think tank warns: “More than one in five young people (age 18-30) in France are voting for populist radical Right parties, while in Italy 70% of young men and women supported populist parties in the 2010s. In Sweden, in recent elections, up to one in five young men voted for populist radical right parties, compared to under one in 15 young women.”
Parth Patel, associate director at IPPR, said: “Progressives are losing ground not only in the battle of votes but the battle of ideas against the populist radical right. They are stealing the left’s claim as the go-to people to change society.
“Progressive parties are seen as defenders of the status quo instead of vehicles of change. The problem is that the progressive engine of ideas seems to have run out of steam.
“When leaders don’t appear to have new ideas, they reach back for old ones, or imitate their opponents. That will not work at a moment of great change and challenge.”
