Alastair Campbell Tells Labour To Set Up MP Group To Attack Reform
3 min read
Alastair Campbell, who was director of communications to former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, has urged current party strategists to set up a group of backbench MPs dedicated to taking the fight to Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
Campbell, now an author and host of the podcast The Rest Is Politics, was speaking at a recent special adviser away day, where he told them they should treat Reform as a more serious electoral threat to the Labour government, PoliticsHome understands.
He told the meeting of advisers that the party should set up a unit of backbench Labour MPs whose job it is to attack Farage's surging party, its arguments and policy positions.
Campbell worked as Blair's spokesperson while in opposition before going on to serve as his official spokesperson and director of communications in Downing Street.
Reform won five House of Commons seats at the July general election on just over 14 per cent of the vote.
Since then, the right-wing party's popularity has grown significantly, with Farage's party leading many recent opinion polls.
Reform is expected to make significant gains at local and mayoral elections on 1 May, and hopes to win its first ever by-election in Runcorn and Helsby on the same day. The party has put leader Nigel Farage front and centre of its campaign in the Cheshire contest, with candidate Sarah Pochin telling PoliticsHome that the “icing on the cake is when Mr Farage comes up" to the seat.
Farage will say that his party is "parking tanks on Labour’s lawn" at a local elections campaign event in Durham on Tuesday afternoon.
Writing in The Sun today, Farage wrote "Labour has lost touch with its traditional supporters" and attacked the government's record on the economy, immigration and net zero.
Of the 98 constituencies where Reform came second at last year's general election, 89 — so around 90 per cent — are held by Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour.
Amid Reform's perceived threat, Labour has stepped up its attacks in recent months.
In February, PoliticsHome reported Labour plans to attack Farage's position on the NHS and accuse him of wanting to switch to an insurance-based healthcare system.
Farage in January told The Times that ministers must “identify a system of funding for healthcare that is more effective than the one we have currently got”. He also raised concerns over the NHS long-term funding model during the July election campaign.
The Reform leader has since said he wants "healthcare to be free at the point of delivery".
Labour strategists have also sought to target Farage's past remarks about the war in Ukraine and accuse the Reform leader of being soft on Russia.
In February, five backbench Labour MPs with military backgrounds wrote for The House accusing Reform of seeking to "spew [Vladimir] Putin’s propaganda".
