Labour is set to double down on efforts to convince voters that the Government is able to make a concrete difference in their lives as a response to the party’s battering in local elections.
Multiple MPs have gone public with demands for a change of policy direction after Reform UK made sweeping gains, including a by-election win in one of Labour’s safest seats. Nigel Farag’s party gained over 600 seats, two mayoral seats, an MP and control of 10 councils.
Such is the dissatisfaction among some within the party that Liverpool MP, Ian Byrne, said the Prime Minister is now “becoming more unpopular” than Margaret Thatcher in the Labour stronghold.
Hopes that Labour would make modest gains in county council elections were comprehensively dashed, with the governing party losing almost two thirds of the seats it was defending.
Sir Keir Starmer has opted against a major public response to the election results. Unlike Nigel Farage, Sir Ed Davey and even Kemi Badenoch, he did not hold a post-elections rally with supporters and will not be seen again in public until the VE Day celebrations on Monday.
Starmer on the day the local elections results were announced (Photo: Henry Nicholls/PA)But Downing Street strategists have admitted they must do more to explain to voters how the policy decisions being taken by the Government are intended to improve their daily lives.
The coming weeks will see a string of major announcements including a white paper on immigration, the striking of a new economic deal with the EU, the strategic defence review and the spending review which will set Whitehall budgets until the next general election.
“We always knew it was going to be difficult in this early period,” a No 10 source told The i Paper. Another insider suggested Labour could take inspiration from some of its rare successes in the local elections, such as the re-election of the Mayor of Doncaster who had fought to reopen her local airport.
A minister said: “The steer from No 10 is they don’t want strategies and reviews, they just want delivery.” The coming week is expected to see a cut to interest rates from the Bank of England, a much-needed piece of good news for the Prime Minister.
Some in Labour have expressed frustration that some of the Government’s more popular policies, such as a new package of workers’ rights pushed by trade unions but resisted by businesses, have not had more publicity.
One MP said: “I don’t think there’s a magic trick we can pull to suddenly fix everything and I do believe we are on roughly the right track and will be painful but things will get better.
“Although there is definitely more we can do to communicate the good things we’re doing, eg employment rights which despite being a huge change nobody seems to know about!”
square LOCAL ELECTIONS 2025 AnalysisWhy the places Reform didn’t quite win show the party is a real national force
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Another warned: “We have got to be bold and clear about whose side we are on in every single thing we do. We need to raise it in every meeting in Whitehall.”
Failing to connect better with voters would only embolden Reform, the MP added: “People are completely right to be furious about us and about the political class. If we have any ambiguity about whose side we are on, then that space will be filled by politicians who are not unclear and not ambiguous.”
Patrick English of the polling company YouGov said: “They need to cut through to voters better and talk to them directly and deal with the issues they care about in terms they can see, understand, and appreciate.
“They can’t have a situation where the only thing voters associate them with is taking money off the elderly and disabled people.”
Savanta’s Chris Hopkins added: “It’s interesting Starmer’s statement is to double down on the existing strategy – that probably makes sense as evidence of not panicking, and overly pivoting to worry about reform, but it’s still a risk as Reform are such an unknown quantity.”
A new poll published on Saturday showed a bump in support for Reform, with the party tied with Labour on 26 per cent each with the Conservatives trailing on 22 per cent.
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