\n<\/p>\n
After Nigel Farage dominated the summer headlines with weekly press conferences while his rivals were on their sunloungers and the news agenda was light, Labour strategists swore they would never let it happen again.<\/p>\n
Labour MPs had returned to Westminster after recess, fuming that the government had vacated the public arena and allowed Reform UK to shape the narrative to the extent that the mood hardened against Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople in their constituencies have been getting terrible feedback. Farage has been everywhere,\u201d one MP said at the time. \u201cThe mood was: this has been a fucking disaster. We\u2019ve been given nothing to do. The government just cleared the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The febrile atmosphere on the backbenches has largely given way to despondency since the summer, but the anxiety around Reform\u2019s persistent lead in the polls in the run up to next May\u2019s elections remains.<\/p>\n
So Reform\u2019s decision to hold a burst of press conferences, at which they take dozens of questions, three days in a row this week to coincide with the news agenda slowing down during the school half-term break, has sent a chill down the spines of some Labour MPs.<\/p>\n
That Farage and his key lieutenants brush aside scrutiny on detail and brazenly push half-truths and pet theories that could be turned into news stories does little to reassure them \u2013 he gets away with responses more mainstream politicians would not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever Farage opens his mouth he seems to create news, even if he\u2019s talking absolute bollocks, and somehow that sustains Reform\u2019s lead in the polls,\u201d said one frustrated Labour MP.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least we haven\u2019t vacated the pitch like we did in the summer, but we still haven\u2019t got our strategy on Reform right. We can\u2019t just take them on, we also need to shout about our own alternative. Whatever we do at the moment it doesn\u2019t seem to make much difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reform shows no sign of altering its strategy. \u201cWe\u2019re at our best when we\u2019re on our front foot. If you want people to vote for you, you have to set out your long-term vision. If we stay silent on the big issues how are people supposed to know what we stand for?\u201d one Reform insider said.<\/p>\n
They say their policies, which this week included announcements on an overhaul of government, grooming gangs and welfare cuts, are properly costed, after Farage\u2019s plan to save \u00a3234bn from migrant benefit cuts fell apart when it emerged 4 million EU nationals would be exempt.<\/p>\n
Farage hopes to dominate the agenda again next week, with a big speech on Monday overhauling the party\u2019s economic policy \u2013 which Labour and the Tories see as a key weakness \u2013 by committing to cut spending before reducing taxes if he makes it into power.<\/p>\n
Two days later, Richard Tice, the economic spokesperson, has been invited to deliver a lecture at Bloomberg, which has previously hosted Rachel Reeves and her predecessor as chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Reform insiders are planning for their energetic messaging to continue into the short Commons break at the end of the week, when the news agenda could again be light. But not everybody in Labour is over-worried.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was tactically smart of Reform to do press conferences over the summer, but when the business of government is happening it gets lost,\u201d said one senior Labour source. Pitch-rolling before the budget and plans to house migrants in military bases have grabbed more headlines.<\/p>\n Labour insiders question the wisdom of Farage\u2019s attempts to put himself in the spotlight. \u201cHe\u2019s a big attention-seeker. But he didn\u2019t perform well this week \u2013 he came across as too snarly and grumpy on Tuesday and couldn\u2019t answer the question on Sarah Pochin,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re announcing policy too soon. It\u2019s years until the election and the public just don\u2019t care. The novelty value of Farage will wear off quite quickly and he\u2019ll leave himself exposed. We think there\u2019s a cap on their support.\u201d<\/p>\n It is not yet clear whether there is, in fact, a limit to Reform\u2019s electoral appeal, but while Farage attempts to juggle insurgency with casting himself as a prime minister in waiting, Labour cannot afford to be complacent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After Nigel Farage dominated the summer headlines with weekly press conferences while his rivals were on their sunloungers and the news agenda was light, Labour strategists swore they would never let it happen again. Labour MPs had returned to Westminster after recess, fuming that the government had vacated the public arena and allowed Reform UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[18296,4309,459,134,18294,124,18295,3091],"class_list":{"0":"post-31396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-downfall","9":"tag-farages","10":"tag-hopes","11":"tag-labour","12":"tag-novelty","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-publicity","15":"tag-wear"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}