Labour is setting out to increase its attacks on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK over its stance on Russia, as polling and focus groups show the public are firmly pro-Ukraine and against Vladimir Putin.
One cabinet source said Labour was planning to “take the fight” to Reform on the issues of the Ukraine war and the NHS after “waking up” to the party’s “softness on standing up to Putin”.
All the main parties have been grappling since the election with how to halt the momentum behind Nigel Farage’s insurgency, with Reform often tying or coming narrowly ahead of Labour and the Conservatives in opinion polls.
However, Labour and the SNP have been increasing their criticism of Farage, in particular over Russia, in the last week, firstly for his claim last year that it was provoked into war in Ukraine, and also for his statement in 2014 that the Russian president was the world leader he most admired.
Keir Starmer accused Farage of “fawning over Putin” in an unusually direct jibe this week, while the SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, accused Reform MPs of being “Putin’s poodles” after most of them did not turn up to big parliamentary debates on defence and security. In response, Farage said the prime minister appeared to be “terribly upset” and “scared” of him.
Meanwhile, John Swinney, the SNP leader, called the Reform leader an “accomplice to the Russian agenda and an apologist for the Russian agenda”.
With defence and security at the top of the national agenda, polling shows the UK public are still firm in their support for Ukraine and opposition to Russia – despite Donald Trump’s moves to strike a deal with Putin to end the war and negative statements about President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Luke Tryl, the executive director of the thinktank More in Common, said: “One of the things that we know is that Reform is out of step with the public on Ukraine and Russia. Seven out of 10 Brits say it is important to the UK that Ukraine wins the war. Similarly, Reform’s rise looked unstoppable in the election until Farage made his comments about Putin and Ukraine.”
But with Reform having dipped slightly in recent polls, Tryl said the public may be responding to the uncertainty of global events rather than any specific concerns about Reform and its position on Russia.
However, even some Reform insiders acknowledge that Russia is a weak point for the party when it comes to alignment with the public, with one describing it as a “chink in the armour”.
The Reform source said some in the party believed it would have done even better at the last election had Farage not said during the campaign that the “ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union” had given Putin a reason to go to war.
“He doesn’t fit the mould which we expect which means he can go off on tangents and so when he was asked about Ukraine he was honest,” the party insider said.
Farage’s stance on Russia appears to have shifted to become more critical in recent years but he is still less hostile than many of his political opponents.
He made 17 appearances on Russian state-funded RT between 2010 and 2014 and while an MEP for Ukip and the Brexit party, his parties several times aligned with hard-right parties in the European parliament to vote against EU motions that were critical of Russia.
Over the past year, Farage has said that “of course” Putin was responsible for the war in Ukraine and rejected Trump’s description of Zelenskyy as a dictator, though he said the country should move towards democratic elections and has long been saying there should be a negotiated end to the war.
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A Reform spokesperson highlighted comments this week by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, saying Reform “stands united” against the “monstrous tyranny of that most evil, evil villain Putin”.
In a House of Commons debate to mark the third anniversary of the invasion, Tice said: “We at Reform stand united with the whole of this house in support of Ukraine and all brave Ukrainians … the issue is that Putin is a vile dictator. We all know that. And my leader has also confirmed that it is Putin that is the aggressor in this war.”
Meanwhile, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said he thought the next election could come down to a binary choice between Labour and Reform in the north.
He also said Reform presents a serious threat in a potential byelection in Mike Amesbury’s Runcorn and Helmsby seat, and at a future general election, because “politics is changing fast” and the UK has seen the “meteoric growth of one political party”.
“I think it will come, in my view, not to a traditional lineup of all of the political parties and more as a more binary choice at the next election,” he added. “Because the Conservative party, I think they’ve almost made themselves somewhat irrelevant in that what’s left has kind of tilted into this sort of the new right view of the world.
“I think the public won’t get the same general election choice as normal,” he said, adding that things were moving towards “two options”.
