Red Wall Labour MPs want tougher message on immigration

A group of around 40 Labour MPs is calling for a stronger message on immigration and more investment from the government to head off the electoral threat of Reform UK.

The Red Wall group - formed last autumn - has requested a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer, and its members have been expressing concerns to ministers.

Many of the MPs represent seats which had been traditionally Labour but had gone Conservative in 2019, and are now facing an electoral challenge from Reform UK.

A recent YouGov opinion poll has suggested Nigel Farage's party is one point ahead of Labour in voting intentions.

The group's convenor, Jo White, the MP for Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire, told the BBC: "The key issue in my constituency is immigration. We are not telling a strong story about what we are achieving."

She said the government should be shouting about the 17,000 people returned to their countries of origin since Labour took power, and had started processing asylum claims again.

"We should be publishing numbers every week," she said.

Though not the views of the entire group, Ms White - in common with the former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair – has been pushing for the introduction of ID cards to reassure voters that illegal immigrants won't get a job or healthcare without one.

She stressed the group was not anti-leadership, and is seeking a partnership with party leadership.

But she says it will speak out more loudly and will get tougher in its demands if required.

Unless voters in Red Wall seats "felt a tangible change" then "we will not win the next general election", she warned.

Reform UK came second to Labour in 89 seats in the 2024 general election, and seeing off the threat from Nigel Farage's party has been exercising minds in Labour Together - the pro-leadership think tank once run by Sir Keir Starmer's current chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.

The current chief executive, former Labour MP and shadow minister Jon Ashworth, told the BBC that its work is being re-oriented to take on Reform UK.

He is working with Red Wall MPs, sharing research on Reform.

Focus groups of swing voters have suggested Reform UK is vulnerable on health policy and the future of the NHS.

One of the leading and long-standing backers of Labour Together, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, devoted a chunk of a major speech last month to attacking Farage, and the Reform leader used Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions to stress his party would keep the NHS free at the point of use.

Farage has spoken in the past about the more favourable health outcomes in the French insurance-based system, and a video from 2012 emerged in which he said: "I think we are going to have to an insurance-based system of health care."

While Reform UK insist that isn't the party policy, the comments haven't gone down well with those 2024 Labour voters flirting with Farage.

What has brought this into sharp focus is the sole opinion poll which has put Reform UK one point ahead of Labour – albeit within the margin of error.

Labour Together's research suggests the rise of Reform is disproportionately at the expense of the Conservatives, so some Labour insiders have been content to see a scrap on the political right continue without introducing a Labour dog into the fight.

Now there is a greater willingness to go for Nigel Farage.

Farage has said that Labour should focus its efforts on tackling cross-Channel migrants before attacking Reform.

Downing Street sources are stressing there has not been an overall change in strategy.

While it makes sense in some seats to take the battle to Reform UK, the next election, they say, will still be a choice between a Conservative and a Labour government.

There is one issue whether the Red Wall MPs, Labour Together, and the Labour party machine are in agreement and that is delivery.

The 'Get Brexit done' election of 2019 severed the link between Labour and some of its traditional voters.

Although many returned to the fold in 2024, the Red Wall MPs still get the sense that this support is being loaned – tribal loyalty has gone.

So a tougher immigration message isn't a silver bullet that will see off Reform.

The government needs to deliver on its promises – on the cost of living and on health care in particular, and Red Wall MPs are pressing for more investment in the North of England the Midlands.

The recent "growth" announcements highlighted Heathrow, Oxford and Cambridge - and Old Trafford, which as one Labour MP put it "is in safe territory or us anyway".

Delivery may well defeat disillusionment – but the question is whether that can be achieved on a well before the next election.

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