Pollsters warn Labour ‘lacks a coherent story' for voters

Reform ready to capitalise on Starmer’s falling popularity

- ARCHIE MITCHELL KATE DEVLIN

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that his government lacks a coherent story and is leaving the door open to Reform UK, as he faces urgent calls to fix his faltering communications operation. The prime minister has been accused of ruling like a technocrat, relying on the belief that if living standards improve, voters will stick with him at the next general election.

But critics of the PM from inside and outside Labour’s ranks have warned him that the party needs not just to deliver, but to be seen to be delivering. And while Sir Keir has suffered the biggest post-election fall in popularity of any modern British prime minister, Nigel Farage’s populist party Reform UK is surging in the polls, opening a three-way split at the top of British politics.

At the weekend, a poll suggested that Sir Keir could lose his majority and nearly 200 of the seats he won in July’s landslide victory – including 67 to Reform. Such a result would see seven cabinet ministers lose their seats, including Wes Streeting, the health secretary, while those losing to Reform would include the deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, the home secretary Yvette Cooper, and the energy secretary Ed Miliband.

On top of its polling success, Reform has now overtaken the Conservative Party as the second-biggest political party in Britain by membership, with more than 140,000 members. After a war of words with Kemi Badenoch over the claim, Mr Farage opened up Reform’s books to confirm that it has outgrown the Tories. He said that his party is now “the real opposition” to Labour.