Labour has decided (as reported by George Eaton) that, while the Conservatives may be the official opposition, the main threat comes from Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Today’s PMQs demonstrated quite clearly who Keir Starmer sees as his biggest rival – and why.
Let’s get Kemi Badenoch’s performance out of the way first. There was a brief moment of solidarity at the start when she condemned the suspected arson attacks on the Prime Minister’s family home, saying “this wasn’t just an attack on him, but on all of us and our democracy”, after which Starmer thanked her for messaging him straight away. The issue of MP safety is one that genuinely unites the House.
It went downhill for Badenoch from there. The words lacklustre, unmemorable and irrelevant all come to mind. In a week where there is one obvious headline topic – immigration – the Conservative leader decided to swerve it. No doubt she was anxious to avoid giving Starmer the ammunition to repeat his well-rehearsed lines that the Tories lost control of the UK’s borders with their “failed free-market experiment”.
Still, a more adept leader could have homed in on the disquiet within Labour’s ranks and accuse the government of being mired in infighting. They could also have congratulated the Prime Minister on taking a policy (increasing residency terms for those seeking Indefinite Leave to Remain) straight out of the opposition’s book, thus proving the Tories’ continued relevance in setting the policy agenda.
But no. Badenoch reverted to her usual attack lines on the economy. And as usual, they failed to land. There’s no real point going through her questions one by one, but the classic Badenoch flair was on display. She cited the department store Beales which has said it is shutting its doors after 144 years as a result of Labour’s tax policy and is holding a “Rachel Reeves closing down sale”. This story comes straight from the right-wing papers, where Badenoch often searches for her PMQs ammunition. It misses out, for example, that Beales has been struggling for years, and talks of its likely collapse go back long before Labour were in power.
She also tried to get a dig in about Labour’s “tiny tariff deal”, which just gave Starmer the opportunity to list all the jobs – from car manufactures in Solihull to steel-makers Scunthorpe to whisky distillers in Scotland – which the trade deals signed with India and the US will protect or create. What with that and calling Badenoch “the only former trade minister who’s against all trade deals”, the PM was clearly having fun.
Badenoch’s final gambit was to claim “Labour isn’t working” – citing the iconic 1978 poster, which helped win Margaret Thatcher her first election a year later. Like all Conservative leaders, Badenoch claims Thatcher as an inspiration, and no doubt hoped the parallels between now and the winter of discontent will help her cause. Alas, it is more likely to suggest that this Tory leader is out of ideas.
The rest of PMQs was peppered with signs something has shifted. Nigel Farage, with new Reform MP Sarah Pochin at his side, stood up to declare that his was “a party that is alive and kicking” (no prizes for guessing who he was sniping at there) and to claim Starmer seemed “to be learning a very great deal from us”. There was some kerfuffle as Farage addressed his comments directly to the Prime Minister rather than to the Speaker as convention dictates, but even with that distraction you could sense the unease on the Labour benches at the Reformer leader claiming how much he enjoyed Starmer’s immigration speech.
Farage noted that since the speech “one thousand young undocumented males have crossed the English Channel” and called on the Prime Minister to declare the situation a national security emergency. Starmer had an answer ready in the form of the border security bill, saying it was “extraordinary” that Farage had voted against it. The PM seemed visibly more alert and prepared than he had batting back Badenoch’s questions.
There was more preparation on display elsewhere in the Commons too. Two Labour MPs – Melanie Onn and Nesil Caliskan – asked friendly question that were clearly aimed at Reform. Onn spoke of protecting thousands of renewable jobs in her Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituency now the new Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire (Andrea Jenkyns, if you’re wondering) “has declared war on renewables”. Caliskan focused on workers rights, inviting the PM to agree that “Reform MPs working and voting against our employment rights bill show that they are no friend of workers in this country”. Both questions gave Starmer a chance to refute Farage’s claim that his was the party of working people – something Labour strategists believe will be a key dividing line. “We’re backing British workers, they vote against them at every turn,” Starmer reiterated.
Lest anyone be in any doubt as to what the Prime Minister thinks of the official opposition, at another point Starmer claimed that a question from a Conservative MP was “further evidence so far as I can see that the Tory project is just finished”. He also multiple times attacked “the parties opposite” – plural – as though a party with five MPs is just as relevant as one with 121.
One final note about the potential risks of Labour’s Farage strategy, demonstrated (as is so often the case at PMQs) by Ed Davey. The Lib Dem leader used his first question to call for a higher minimum wage for care workers, which is standard fare for him. But for his second, he turned to the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the urgent need to get food, water and medicine into the area. The war in Gaza is a potent issue on the left – Labour lost several seats in the last election to pro-Gaza Green and independent candidates. With Labour pivoting further towards Reform and potentially risking its left-wing base further since July, there is an opportunity for the Lib Dems to join the Greens in picking up votes from the left. Davey’s question was carefully worded, as was Starmer’s answer. But the fact he asked it at all hints at further challenges for Labour on its left-wing flank. Farage isn’t the only threat in town.
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