Labour turns to the right as Reform UK wins big in elections

Nigel Farage at a Reform UK rally (Picture: Reform UK)

The surge of support for Reform UK in the local elections last week is major threat. So is the response from Labour.

Keir Starmer wants to stampede further to the right with another crackdown on immigration. The Labour government will outline plans to slash the number of migrant workers and refugees allowed into Britain in a new “white paper” document this week.

But that’s not enough for some Labour MPs. Jonathan Hinder—a right winger and former police officer—demanded Starmer implements an immigration freeze with a “one in, one out” policy. Hinder spun the lie that “working class people are generally the losers” from immigration.

But migrants did not drive down workers’ pay to keep profits high—or slash funding for schools, ­hospitals and community centres.

They did not sell off industries and leave whole towns to rot. They did not destroy social housing, build luxury flats and jack up rents. They did not steal winter fuel allowance from pensioners or benefits from parents and disabled people.

That was big business, the ­bankers and the landlords—with the help of the Tories and Labour alike.

“Too many working class people see Labour as the party of immigrants, minorities, those on ­benefits,” Hinder claims.

The only minority the Labour Party protects is the top 1 percent of the population. Working class people—whether born in Britain or migrants—are the losers of 40 years of free market policies.

It means the combined wealth of 350 richest individuals and families in Britain stands at £795.36 billion.

At the same time, wage growth has largely flat-lined for the last 30 years and public services have crumbled thanks to austerity and ­privatisation. Nigel Farage and Reform UK latch onto people’s anger at years of neoliberalism and ­austerity hammering people.

But opposition to “mass” and ­“illegal” immigration is the glue that binds together Reform UK’s story of Britain’s “national decline”.

Labour gives legitimacy to racist ideas—and normalises the far right. Reform UK’s message is that it is the only party that will take the sort of action required to clamp down on immigration. Why vote for a ­lite-version of tackling immigration when you can vote for the real deal?

Giving an inch the idea that migrants and refugees are to blame will only boost Reform UK.

That’s why it’s is important that Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) labelled Reform UK a racist party and campaigned against the myths about ­immigration. It distributed over 100,000 leaflets across England, campaigned in 13 out of 14 county council elections and every mayoral election.

It had 50 people out ­campaigning every weekend in Runcorn and staged two national days of action to stop Reform UK.

Many Labour politicians are trying to distance themselves from the Starmer government.

Welsh Labour first minister Elenud Morgan had tried to move closer to the Starmer leadership. But now she’s expected to make a speech this week about the Westminster government’s welfare reforms.

Morgan is staring down the barrel of Reform UK sweeping the board in the Welsh parliamentary elections in May 2026.

In Doncaster, once a bastion of Labour support, the party very narrowly managed to hold the ­mayoralty on 32.6 percent while losing the council.

Ros Jones, the newly re-elected mayor of Doncaster, was quick to distance herself from the Labour government no sooner than the votes were counted.

“National government needs to look and see what people are saying. They are saying the same as I am. I wrote to Starmer as soon as the winter fuel allowance cut was mooted and said it was wrong.

“I stepped in immediately and used our council’s household ­support fund,” she added.

But Starmer isn’t going to change course on austerity. Labour shot down a mild ­suggestion from the Unison union leaders—who back Starmer—that it loosens its ­self-imposed fiscal rules.

There is a need for an alternative at the ballot box that could mobilise breaking with Labour to the left.

A left challenge could put an argument that says, “Blame bosses, not migrants” to millions of people.

But we can’t wait for the next set of elections to give Starmer a bloody nose from the left, especially as Reform UK grows.

We urgently need more struggles, strikes, protests and mass mobilisations against Starmer’s austerity, racism and warmongering.