Starmer is right about Farage's ‘fantasy’ budget - but he should spend more time worrying about himself
Perhaps the real fantasy is that Farage’s policies are worth more than a side-eye and a shrug.
In a speech given in the north of England today, Prime Minister Kier Starmer chose to fire a direct attack on Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage. Addressing Reform’s recent promises to reinstate the winter fuel allowance and scrap the two-child benefit cap, Starmer labelled Farage Liz Truss 2.0 and accused him of pledging to “spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it.”
He said: “In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill. We were right. And we were elected to fix that mess. Now in government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy – this time from Nigel Farage.”
But perhaps the real fantasy is that Farage’s policies are worth more than a side-eye and a shrug from the current Prime Minister, who, under the current circumstances, could stand to look a little closer to home. The slip in polling ratings for Labour since the 2024 general election is the worst for any government since 1983. As of this month, YouGov polling put Starmer’s favourability rating at -46, his lowest on YouGov’s records — with the fall in popularity concentrated among his own voters, half of whom (50%) now have an unfavourable view of the prime minister.
While the May by-election results were proof that the threat of Reform shouldn’t be ignored, the PM risks going too far the other way in legitimising Farage’s nonsense policies — and, to be clear, they are nonsense. Along with fixing the Winter Fuel Allowance and the two-child benefit cap (a clear attempt to capitalise on Starmer’s plummeting popularity), Farage also pledged more generous tax breaks for married couples and to make good on his existing promise to raise the threshold at which someone starts to pay income tax from £12,570 to £20,000.
Of course the sums don’t add up. Economists estimate that raising the income tax threshold would cost the government £50 billion to £80 billion per year, while tax breaks for married couples would cost £1.5 billion. Together, reinstating Winter Fuel Allowance and scrapping the two-child benefit would cost £5 billion. All of this would be afforded by cuts to three key spending areas: the environment, asylum seeker hotels and scaling back the size of government. Even ignoring the fact Farage is using outdated and incomplete calculations, these won’t be enough to fulfill his promises.
But the public is no stranger to Farage’s pie-crust promises, and to give such throwaway policies any credence is foolish, especially since there is no guarantee any of them will be enacted. Just a glance at some of the latest moves made by the new Reform-led councils exemplifies just how little they are to be trusted. Already, the party promised to scrap low traffic neighbourhoods in the 10 new Reform-led council areas, despite the fact that none of them have low traffic neighbourhoods; two of Reform’s mayors, in Hull and Greater Lincolnshire, went against their own anti-net-zero line and backed clean energy projects like offshore wind farms; and, as we noted in last week’s Reform Watch, the party is already disjointed on its Winter Fuel Allowance policy (more than one Reform official has alluded to supporting means-testing, the policy which Farage swears he will scrap).
Starmer’s jabs at Farage aren’t unjustified, but they are misplaced. Real people aren’t concerned with party politics — they want solutions to the cost of living crisis, affordable homes, clean water and a fully functioning health service that serves everyone. Many who turned out in the by-elections were no more casting a vote for Reform than they were against Labour — and, according to research by pollsters More In Common, were less concerned with actual policies than sending a signal to the current main parties.
Just as with his recent immigration blunder, Starmer is barking up the wrong tree. Recent YouGov polling found that most voters — including Reform UK voters — recognise that Starmer is making an attempt to appeal to them, while fewer than half (48%) of Labour voters feel the same. By directing his attacks towards Farage’s (yes, completely absurd) proposed budget, Starmer deflects from the real problem: that the people of Britain feel no more served by the Labour party than they were by the Tories.■
About the author: Ella is a freelance journalist specialising in worker's rights, housing, youth culture, social affairs and lifestyle. You can find her work in Tribune Magazine, Huck Magazine, Novara Media, VICE, Dazed, metro.co.uk and – most importantly – here at The Lead.
The Lead Says brings you insightful writing on people, place and policy. Last week, we reflected on the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd and what happened to all those pledges and promises, and we took an in-depth look at Kier Starmer’s Brexit reset and asked if were finally returning to political honesty. Elsewhere at The Lead, we have been untangling the so-called ‘banter ban’, looking in to whether the government’s new harassment provisions are protecting workers or policing everyday speech. And in features, Niellah Arboine reports on agriculture and asks why there aren’t more Black farmers in the UK.
Support our independent journalism at The Lead with a paid subscription to help ensure alternative voices are being heard.