Labour’s desperate demonisation of Reform UK

The political assassination of American conservative Charlie Kirk has lessons for us here in the UK. For we too live in an environment in which left-leaning elites have frequently demonised their opponents, and none more so than Nigel Farage and other members of Reform UK, myself included. Not for nothing does Farage travel abroad surrounded by highly professional security teams.

The demonisation of Farage is being escalated right now, in the dog days of summer, with a capital city in gridlock as strikes make movement a misery. Indeed, the Labour government under Keir Starmer is lashing out like a cornered animal. And it’s targeting Reform because it is the rising force that exposed the establishment’s frailties in May’s local elections and in polls and by-elections ever since.

With a majority as precarious as a toddler on a frozen village pond in April, and a weather-vane approach to policymaking, Labour’s attacks have become increasingly hysterical and nasty. From cabinet briefings to backbench rants, the message is clear: Reform must be demonised at all costs.

Consider the barrage from the top. During a Sky News interview in July, business and trade secretary Peter Kyle said that Farage’s criticism of the Online Safety Act put him ‘on the same side’ as Jimmy Savile and other notorious paedophiles.

Then there’s the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Her own fiscal record is a masterclass in mismanagement. Just a year into office, Reeves has overseen borrowing spirals and tax hikes that have spooked markets, with inflation ticking up and growth forecasts slashed. Yet, in a breathtaking display of hypocrisy this week, she called Reform a ‘clown show’ that would ‘lose control of spending and force up inflation and people’s mortgages’. Reeves, the self-styled economist, lecturing others on prudence while her budget looms like a storm cloud over Britain’s high streets, seems Newspeak at best. She is the one wearing huge oversize boots and driving a collapsable jalopy.

Starmer himself has now joined the fray. He used the first meeting of his reshuffled cabinet to declare war on Reform. He told his ministers that ‘we’re up against those that feed off the politics of grievance’, and said his cabinet had a ‘patriotic duty’ to challenge Farage and Reform.

Starmer’s inner circle, now bloated with blob technocrats, like lockdown-era chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, has been tasked with countering Reform’s surge in support, which has climbed to 35 per cent in some polls, amid Labour’s freefall. It’s telling: a government elected on ‘change’ is now fixated on stifling opposition.

And let’s not forget the foot soldiers. Labour MP Mike Tapp, the pugnacious backbencher from Dover, has made it his personal crusade to brand Farage and Reform as ‘plastic patriots’. In a series of fiery social-media posts and a Spectator interview last month, Tapp derided Reform’s immigration stance as ‘fake tough talk’, claiming it masks a ‘betrayal’ of British values. Coming from a party that has overseen record small-boat crossings and seems clueless when it comes to reducing high net-migration levels it’s all a bit rich.

Indeed, Tapp’s attacks, laced with personal vitriol, reveal a deeper insecurity: Labour’s patriotic credentials are in tatters after decades of woke pandering and anti-Brexit cheerleading.

But the most egregious slur to date has come from John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor and Labour’s unrepentant hard-left firebrand. Speaking at a TUC fringe event on Tuesday, McDonnell implicitly likened Reform to the Nazis. He called Reform ‘a proto-fascist organisation’, adding: ‘We’ve seen it in the 1930s. What they do, they have a demagogue speaking for them, they target a particular group – in the 1930s in Germany it would have been the Jews, here it is asylum seekers.’

The comparison, drawn amid Reform’s push for a migration cap, was not subtle. It was a deliberate attempt to delegitimise us, a major opposition party, by equating our ‘demagogue’ leader with one of history’s greatest monsters. Outrage poured in from across the spectrum, including from some moderate Labour figures. Although it is instructive to note that right now Labour’s own policies on immigration are beginning to look like a supermarket sweep along the Reform aisle at Lidl.

This is desperate stuff from Labourites. They are terrified because we at Reform have everything their sclerotic party machine lacks: energy, authenticity and a vision for liberty. Farage has tapped into the public’s fury over open borders, failing services and elite detachment. We are challenging Labour in the Red Wall seats and even in Scotland and Wales. With winter energy bills soaring and the economy teetering, Labour’s poll lead has evaporated. Its reverse Midas touch is clear in every department of government – the chancellor’s drive for growth has delivered stagnation, while Starmer’s ‘missions’ have become u-turns. Society frays under Labour’s watch, with trust in institutions at rock bottom, yet Labourites blame the messengers.

The smears from Starmer and Co won’t stick. They only highlight the government’s own failures and the vacuum Reform is filling. As winter bites, voters will see through the panic. Farage isn’t Hitler; he’s the antidote to a government turning Britain to dross.

In light of Kirk’s assasination some may now call for a crackdown on extreme political discourse. But it’s not a call I support. There must be freedom of speech, and I would never demand that politicians be barred from using that right. But they might now just take a moment to consider what demons they are conjuring up when they exercise it.

Gawain Towler is a commentator and an elected board member of Reform UK.