Can Reform win the Red Wall?

The party’s tanks are on Labour’s lawn – but does it grasp the priorities of working-class voters?

Photo: House of Commons

If reports are to be believed, Labour MPs representing some of the party’s traditional heartland seats recently established a ‘Red Wall caucus’ with the aim of neutralising the threat of Reform. As well they might. For in addition to winning five seats at July’s general election, Nigel Farage’s party came second in 98 constituencies, 89 of which were won by Labour. And of those 89, 60 were located in the north of England.

‘We’re coming for Labour – be in no doubt about that,’ declared Farage the morning after the election.

Since then, Reform has professionalised rapidly. Membership numbers have surged; it has secured a couple of high-profile defections from the Tories (former minister Andrea Jenkyns and high-profile writer and activist Tim Montgomerie); and reports suggest that one or two ultra-wealthy benefactors are primed to start filling its coffers.

The party has also doubtless been buoyed by both Labour’s sharp drop in popularity since it came to power and Kemi Badenoch’s underwhelming performance as leader of the Conservative party.

Reform’s own polls ratings are increasingly positive. It has seen a tangible rise in support since the election. One poll conducted last week – by Find Out Now – placed the party in second place on 25% (with Labour on 26% and the Tories on 24%). For an outfit that has been operating in a meaningful form for not much longer than a couple of years, these figures are undeniably impressive.

If, however, a week is a long time in politics, then four years – the likely period between now and the next election – is an eternity, so there remains plenty of scope for the Reform project to hit the buffers. But assuming it continues to chart a steady course and does nothing sufficiently wacky to precipitate a Ukip-style implosion, the party is likely to be a serious player come 2028 or 2029.

That prospect will inevitably cause many Tories to break out in a cold sweat. Reform cost their party dearly at the last election, and there is scant evidence that the hordes of apostate traditional Tory voters – be they those who stayed at home in July or voted for one of the other parties – will be returning to the fold any time soon.

But, just as Reform presents a real and present danger to the Tories, so Labour cannot afford to be complacent. Should the government fail to deliver on the kind of touchstone issues that are increasingly influencing voter behaviour in Red Wall constituencies, Reform may reap the harvest.

Arguably the key among those issues is immigration – a topic that was reportedly the motivation behind the establishment of the new caucus of Red Wall MPs. Traditional working-class communities have suffered most acutely – in the way of pressure on wages, housing and public services, as well as the undermining of social cohesion – from the unprecedented inward migratory flows. These are often places where a sense of rootedness and belonging are heightened, and thus anything which violates these things is likely to be met with a justified hostility.

These communities have looked on exasperated as, time and again, politicians promised to get to grips with the situation only to fall woefully short. The recent announcement that net migration reached an astonishing 1.6m in the 24 months to June 2024 will doubtless have fuelled the belief among voters in these places, rightly or wrongly, that only a radical insurgent party such as Reform possesses the will to fix the system.

Driving down NHS waiting lists and increasing GP capacity must also be a priority for Labour if they are to retain support in the Red Wall. And here Reform – which contains more than its share of representatives and activists who would like to see universal healthcare replaced with a US-style system – needs to tread carefully. For while working-class voters do not fetishise the NHS, they do not wish to see it sold off to privateers. They just want it to be better at what it does.

And the same dividing line over the respective roles of the state and market will influence the degree to which Red Wall voters are likely to support the Reform agenda on wider economic issues. Let’s face it: most of Reform’s senior influencers are unreconstructed Thatcherites – economic liberals who desire to see the frontiers of the state rolled back ever further and as many functions as possible handed over to the market. This philosophy is not one that will resonate in the Red Wall. After decades of deindustrialisation – with everything that has meant for them in the way of the disappearance of skilled and rewarding work in strong and thriving industries, and the concomitant social decline – voters in these places wish to see an active state that is willing to intervene in the economy using every economic level at its disposal to revitalise industry and improve their lives, and in a way that elevates the priorities of the real economy – and particularly our long-neglected manufacturing sector – over those of the financial economy.

People in towns such as Grimsby and South Shields have little affection for the Singapore-on-Thames economic model so revered by Reform’s leading lights. They experienced the deleterious consequences of economic liberalism in the 1980s, and they don’t want to go back there.

That said, we know that, for all sorts of other reasons, millions of Red Wall voters did back Reform at the most recent election. Thus, if Labour fails to deliver on its promise to bring growth and greater prosperity, and if it also falls short on the pledge to reduce immigration numbers and NHS waiting lists, the sense of anger in those communities may be so pronounced that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that sufficient numbers of them will return a Reform MP – economic liberal warts and all – next time around.

And if, as recent reports suggest, Labour’s impending renegotiation with the European Union has the effect of drawing the UK back into the yolk of that institution, Reform will again be the main beneficiary. Many working-class voters have not forgotten the betrayal of Labour’s attempts to cancel the Brexit vote first time around, and they won’t forgive any backsliding now.

So things remain volatile in British politics. The old tribal loyalties continue to disintegrate. Sir Keir Starmer would be wise to listen to the new caucus of MPs very carefully. The prospect of Reform sweeping the Red Wall is not the fantasy that some might imagine it to be.

---

A reminder that you can follow me on X/Twitter: @PaulEmbery