Labour spent their conference talking about Nigel Farage and Reform UK, just as the Liberal Democrats did last week in Bournemouth. But the rhetoric in Liverpool was much nastier and inflammatory. In his latest Telegraph column, Allister Heath commented that as long as the Reform leader continues to stand up to genuine racists and extremists, his advance to No 10 appears unstoppable.
Telegraph: 1st October 2025: Allister Heath takes aim at Keir Starmer after the Prime Minister's hysterical attacks on Nigel Farage.
"Starmer hasn’t just launched Project Fear II, for the threat posed by Farage is orders of magnitude greater than Brexit: he is fuelling a moral panic to unite the Left against the threat of a populist insurgency that would undo the achievements of thirty years of Blairite hegemony.
"Starmer’s gambit is to turn politics into a permanent referendum on Farage. Labour strategists acknowledge that the Reform leader is popular, but argue that while Farage is on 29-34 per cent in the polls, that leaves a vast majority that doesn’t support him, and never will. There are echoes here of the 1980s Labour conceit that the UK is a Leftist country only controlled by the Right thanks to first-past-the-post. That claim was refuted by Brexit, but Starmer appears to believe that this was an aberration. He believes surveys that suggest a majority would support Rejoining, failing to realise that a proper campaign would quickly change attitudes, as with ID cards where support plunged as a result of Starmer’s reverse midas touch.
"Many Corbynites and Greens see Starmer as a quasi-Tory, and believe they could replace Labour as the main party of the Left.
"The Prime Minister’s decision to write off the Conservatives and crown Farage de facto leader of the opposition may also backfire, encouraging more residual Tory voters to defect to Reform. Starmer’s blundering might accelerate the unification of the Right, while failing to reverse the fragmentation of the Left, costing him even more seats.
"Farage should keep calm and carry on. To his great credit, he has spent his career refusing to associate with racists and fascists. He must continue to have nothing to do with extremists who crave religious conflict, or who question the Britishness of citizens from ethnic minorities.
"The tectonic plates are shifting. The new political order is Farage’s to lose, not Starmer’s to win."