{"id":611396,"date":"2025-12-04T10:01:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/611396\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T10:01:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:01:23","slug":"starmer-urged-to-use-brexit-to-beat-nigel-farage-amid-reforms-surge-in-the-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/611396\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer Urged To Use Brexit To Beat Nigel Farage Amid Reform’s Surge In The Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Keir<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage AP<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer has been urged to use Brexit to beat Nigel Farage as Reform UK continue to surge ahead in the polls.<\/p>\n

The prime minister, who voted to Remain, spent much of his first year in office avoiding any mention of the UK\u2019s departure from the EU.<\/p>\n

However, earlier this week he launched<\/a> an outspoken attack on the \u201cwild promises\u201d made by Brexiteers as he urged the public not to support calls to quit Nato and the European Convention of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

LBC presenter and co-host of the News Agents, Lewis Goodall, told BBC Newsnight explained why this could be a powerful political point.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarage\u2019s great, great asset is that \u2013 pretty much unlike all the major parties in parliament \u2013 he does not have a record to defend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcept, of course, he does \u2013 Brexit. It is his signature contribution to British life. He owns it. He is it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodall said that there is now enough distance with the \u201cBrexit wars\u201d and enough public dissatisfaction for Labour to use it against Farage amid his rise in the polls.<\/p>\n

A YouGov<\/a> survey from June found 56% of Brits now think it was wrong to leave the EU, although 31% still think it was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

A further 61% said<\/a> Brexit has been a failure compared to just 13% who said it was a success.<\/p>\n

While the Tory Party and former Conservative PM Boris Johnson are among those most blamed for this failing, two-thirds also blame Farage (67%).<\/p>\n

But, despite being one of the defining voices of Brexit, Farage\u2019s party is still storming ahead in the polls.<\/p>\n

More in Common\u2019s mega-survey<\/a> from September found Reform would take 373 seats with Labour reduced to double digits.<\/p>\n

But Goodall suggested it was time No.10 stop being so \u201creluctant\u201d to critique Brexit and attach it to Farage.<\/p>\n

Goodall added: \u201cLabour\u2019s biggest problem is not that it\u2019s haemorrhaging votes to Reform. It\u2019s haemorrhaging votes to the left, to the Greens and the Lib Dems, who are avowedly Remain parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Starmer talking about this more is as much concentrated on them as it is Farage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poppy Coburn, assistant comment editor for pro-Brexit newspaper The Telegraph, agreed and said it was time to \u201cbring back the culture wars\u201d.<\/p>\n

She told Newsnight Labour were never going to win former supporters who supported Brexit back, adding:\u00a0\u201cWhat you need to do is galvanise the centre-left, who at the moment are very dissatisfied with Labour who seem weak, listless, they\u2019re going towards the Greens, they\u2019re going towards the Lib Dems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodall also noted that Labour\u2019s recent attacks on Brexit reflect their dire situation in the polls, which is forcing them \u201cto take decisions they would not have otherwise have taken\u201d.<\/p>\n

Related…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage AP Keir Starmer has been urged to use Brexit to beat Nigel Farage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,190953,1699,4884,807,190952,384,190954,386,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-611396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-convention-of-human-rights","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-lewis-goodall","18":"tag-nigel-farage","19":"tag-public-dissatisfaction","20":"tag-reform-uk","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115660724820589572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}