Labour must target deprived areas or lose out to Reform, says former minister

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/01/labour-reform-deprived-areas

by boycecodd

32 comments
  1. No – what they need to do is keep spending billions of pounds each year on people coming here illegally, while those already here in deprived areas continue to suffer.

  2. “Polling carried out for the commission, which will also be published on Wednesday, shows support for the Reform party is driven by voter concerns about issues such as antisocial behaviour, crime and litter on the streets.”

    Anything except immigration

  3. Yeah, we don’t need more thick racist fucks dragging the country down again, we need to learn from 2016.

  4. Reforms support for Trump is damaging them. Trump supporting parties are losing elections all over Europe.

  5. We need LEVELLING UP BACK, come on labour get the public back on side.

  6. Trump is a cancer in the US and Farrage is a cancer here.

    Policies based on populist lies, blaming the powerless in society for the daylight robbery taking place by elites.

    These people use their power to sell their version of events fronted by lying conmen like Trump and Farrage.

    It’s about time people woke up and started to fight back against this agenda before it’s too late and all our rights have been crushed under foot.

    Sold out by the very people who have the most to lose.

  7. I’ve seen enough, send £50m to ~~Israel~~ Great Yarmouth

  8. Imagine watching the shit show in America and thinking “I could do with some of that over here.”

  9. Usual arrogant, complacent frothing from the Comrades. You might of thought they would have learned by now that trying to smear people as Nazis is ineffective – but then the left are a special kind of stupid.

  10. Yeah, these areas have seen decades of being treated like *****. No investment but cheap areas for councils to place Asylum seekers.

    Scary amounts of unemployment and horrifying amounts of youth unemployment. Getting jobs back into these areas will help so much.

  11. Target the center. That’s where the votes are. Following Farage is a fools erand. It’s why the Tories probably won’t pick up enough votes in the next election.

  12. Yes we know and city councils dumping migrants in poor rural areas is a known problem noone wants to stop either. Meanwhile guess which party is becoming more and more popular in these places.

  13. Labour must invest in and target deprived areas *to win them back from* Reform

  14. We don’t need to “target” them. Such demeaning language. These areas need to see solutions to the problems they face. They need consideration and inclusion, not “targeting”.

  15. Unfortunately many working people and those in deprived areas absolutely hate Labour. Whether it’s lies by the right wing media, or labours own policies who knows. Where I live, it’s a very upper working class area, Labour are quite frankly seen as the party for the BAME community, lazy people, and for those that hate England. I imagine it’s the same in other areas.

    The last 2 candidates they’ve fielded in the area have been a women with red hair, and another women fresh out of uni who was more concerned about global warming and pushing forward for a huge mosque to be built. Of course there is nothing wrong with women MPs, but surely they’ve got to have a better strategy.

    I’ve been rather impressed with Labour so far, although again unfortunately they seem even more hated in my day to day experiences talking to people.

    They’ve got work hard to get rid of the ‘anti English/ British’ stereotype. How they do it, who knows. But I do predict a reform or reform & Tory coalition next GE. Why? Because reform have positioned themselves as the party for ‘The British’, they’re talking about issues which Labour and even the tories refuse to or they go red faced when asked about it.

  16. Wow,.so labour needs to appeal to the working class, you know, the group that used to be their base before they became just another manifestation of the neoliberal status quo. Such an unexpected insight.

  17. I’m not convinced it will help. Some of the most deprived areas were the biggest recipients of EU funding, yet they were easily convinced to vote leave by the likes of Farage.

  18. Even if they do it, some uneducated fools will still vote for Reform because Labour is not “patriotic”

  19. Improving these areas will definitely be good for the people there, it won’t win them votes though.

  20. Since the election all I’ve heard in the northeast is cut, cut, cut.

    A1 dualing, Tyne Bridge funding, Durham transport funding to name a few and I’m sure there’s more I’ve missed. It’s hard to keep up.

  21. Yes I quite agree they are the sort of voters that will lap up Reforms divisive lies

  22. Isn’t the deprived areas where the people that reform voters hate live.

  23. Reform’s ties to Russia make them entirely irrelevant unless Farage goes.

  24. Nah, the right thing to do is insult them and take them for granted

  25. Incredible how many “former ministers” suddenly become the most perceptive and incisive pundits once they’re ousted from their positions and no longer have any kind of sway whatsoever over the regime.

  26. Is reform going to do better? Evem Musk says Fartage is crap…

  27. Labour couldn’t care less about the poor, horrible people!

  28. Labour only got in beecause of reform, they split the right wing vote. If reform folds, labour is crushed. Labour did not do anything to win, Conservative lost by hemmoraging votes to reform.

    Labours only hope is that farage goes off and sets up another political party after being bored of reform and reofrm collapses.

    Once farage is accepted by the establishment – he might not like the idea of reforming.

    Starmer win but still got less votes than corbyns second attempt.

  29. Labour just needs to hammer home what Reform are, who they are, and what they stand for.

    The only reason anyone supports them is because they don’t fucking have a clue who they are, or what they intend to do.

    You think even the most ardently racist prick is going to vote to purposefully BANKRUPT THE UK AND EVERYONE WHO USES £?

    Because that is RefUK policy. Their grand idea – as argued for *in the HoC*!

    And then forget about the treacherous cunts and go about fixing the damned country.

    There will ALWAYS be a share of the voter base stupid enough and ignorant enough that the right wing can persuade them to jump off of cliffs.
    But no matter how loud and annoying and, frankly pathetic, they are, they aren’t significant.

    Stand up to the idiots.

  30. Deprived areas need a new deal, not political slogans.

    These areas were exploited to fund the British Empire, not the benefactors of it. What little it gave was in the way of working class communities built around domestic industry – these declined, and so did the communities around them. And then the vultures swept in.

    Cornwall and parts of Devon represent the most egregious examples of this. The interiors impoverished, the coastal areas save a few towns and the non-affluent cities are massively gentrified.

  31. Target the areas for extra funding, maybe even build a public library, whilst flooding the area with 3rd world immigrants and forever destroying local British communities from the area.
    I’m sure labour have this in the bag.

  32. Do people honestly believe that reform has any intention of supporting deprived areas? Really?

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