Sir Keir Starmer risks looking like the Scrooge of Westminster if he fails to fully restore winter fuel payments
ANALYSIS
Nigel Farage is outflanking Labour to the Left (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage is creating a nightmare for Rachel Reeves. The Reform UK leader is making spending commitments which many Labour MPs would love their own party leadership to match.
Mr Farage’s party has pledged to fully reinstate” winter fuel payments for pensioners and axe the two-child benefit cap. The veteran Brexiteer can now cast himself as a champion of pensioners and a foe of child poverty.
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These are policies which will win the attention of voters in traditional Labour constituencies and far beyond who feel the cost of living crisis has never ended.
It is one thing for Reform UK to attack Labour from the Right – such as by demanding tougher action on immigration – but now the party is providing competition from the Left. Mr Farage’s party is even prepared to look positively at state ownership, with taxpayers taking a stake in oil and gas ventures as part of a push to make the most of the North Sea’s resources.
This is deeply uncomfortable territory for Labour. Sir Keir Starmer surprised the country last week when he said he wanted more pensioners to qualify for winter fuel payments. But now, if he falls short of restoring the benefit to all pensioners, he will look like the Scrooge of Westminster.
The Chancellor is under acute pressure to stick within her fiscal rules to prevent the country’s borrowing costs spiralling even higher. Government departments are expecting to be squeezed in the imminent spending review and experts are talking-up the possibility she may be forced to break a manifesto policy and raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT.
Breaking a manifesto promise would be a disaster for a Government already pilloried for the shock decision to roll back winter fuel payments and the hike in National Insurance for employers alongside the expansion of inheritance tax for farmers. Labour’s foes would brand the party not just incompetent but dishonest.
To make matters worse even more difficult, Reform is telling voters there is plenty of cash to improve their lives but the Government is wedded to spending taxpayers’ money on the drive for net zero and on equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Reform has big ambitions to win traditional Labour strongholds – even taking seats that Boris Johnson could not win in 2019. Labour MPs worry that while a social stigma stops many voters in former industrial heartlands voting Conservative, voters in areas such as the South Wales Valleys will feel no such inhibitions when it comes to backing Reform – especially if the party takes a more generous approach to supporting pensioners and families than Labour.
Next year’s elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments will demonstrate whether Reform’s strategy is working. In the meantime, Mr Farage is pushing Labour right where he wants it – between a large rock and a very hard place.
