The Labour Party has been hemorrhaging both popularity and members since coming into power in 2024, with disturbing results: for the first time ever, the far-right Reform UK recently polled neck and neck with the two largest parties in Britain. The information caused concern among Labour ranks but led to no significant changes. In fact, Labour leadership appears to be making the same mistake as other center-left parties in Europe—adopting right-wing rhetoric and policies in the hope of outdoing the original.
Most recently, a group of Labour MPs calling themselves the Red Wall group demanded a “stronger” stance on immigration, while other party members boasted about ramping up deportations since taking over from the Conservatives. Reflecting on the Tories’ pursuit of a controversial scheme to forcibly remove migrants from Britain to Rwanda, Labour’s Olivia Bailey wrote that her party has “been getting on with the job of returning people who have no right to be here.”
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Labour’s immigration policies are not just unfortunate—they internalize Reform UK’s xenophobia and hatred of migrants. According to Morning Star’s Roger McKenzie, the Red Wall group’s rhetoric borrows racist language and tropes used by Nigel Farage’s party, framing immigration from Africa and the Caribbean as a problem, unlike migration from white-majority parts of Australia and New Zealand. In its attempt to maintain power, Labour is trying to be “more reformed than Reform,” McKenzie told Peoples Dispatch.
Not only does this rhetoric completely ignore Britain’s colonial legacy and the complicity of successive governments in fueling conflicts that continue to force migration from the Global South, but it also plays a key role in normalizing far-right narratives. As a result, just as Reform UK’s support has grown in the polls, so too has the presence and ambition of right-wing groups on the ground. “Racism thrives when living standards fall,” stated Stand Up to Racism co-convenor Sabby Dhalu, pointing out that people had voted for Labour hoping for better social policies, not more division.
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Despite the experiences of other European center and center-left parties that adopted similar strategies to curb the far right’s rise, Keir Starmer’s leadership appears to have learned nothing and is on its way to make the same mistakes in Britain. In France, Germany, and Italy, mainstream governments have toughened on immigration and maintained austerity policies, only to see far-right parties like Alternative for Germany surge in popularity. Instead of shifting to the right, critics argue that parties like Labour would do better by addressing voters’ real concerns—such as the climate crisis, workers’ rights, and public ownership—which have the potential to improve people’s lives, according to Hope Not Hate polls.
“Even if all the boats were stopped tomorrow, it would not make anyone in this country better off,” Labour MP Diane Abbott wrote. “It certainly will not stop the rise in the energy price cap.”
Since taking office, the Starmer administration has only reinforced the idea that its economic and social policies will remain as conservative as the Tories’. When discussing a budget centered on cost cutting, Labour refused to scrap the two-child cap, a policy widely blamed for keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty, and discontinued winter fuel support for most pensioners. The party also signaled it would continue privatizing the National Health Service (NHS), which is already struggling under the weight of decades of commodification. As Abbott put it, the more people see of Starmerism, the less they like it.
While some MPs—mainly independents and those elected on a Labour ticket but later ostracized for defying party directives—continue to speak out against the government’s direction, the most promising path toward change lies outside traditional political structures. According to McKenzie, building on strong experiences such as that of the anti-war movement, grassroots initiatives must expand their scope, work with left unions, and refuse to cede ground to the far-right. Only through such organizing can the growing tide of racism and reactionary politics be countered.
