We’re scarcely into the new year and already luminaries on the liberal left have resumed one of their favourite pastimes: issuing alarmist forebodings about the threat posed by populism, and imploring everyone that Reform UK must be stopped.
That is why Starmer and those on the left will always invoke the bogeyman of Reform and forever diabolise its brand of ‘populism’
Just as the final days of 2025 saw Gillian Tett of the Financial Times warn on Newsnight about ‘the rise of “The Three Ps”: populism, protectionism and extreme patriotism’, this year had barely got started before Sir Chris Powell, the New Labour former advertising strategist, chimed in to remind us of a great peril facing this country: the ‘existential’ and ‘new and terrifying threat’ embodied by Reform.
As Powell writes in the Guardian: ‘We are at a very dangerous moment. We simply cannot afford to allow Reform UK to have a free run, and become established and entrenched as a credible potential government in the minds of disenchanted voters.’ He concludes by urging Keir Starmer to undertake a ‘fundamental reset’ to see off this danger.
Leaving aside the reality that most people think the most ‘terrifying threat’ facing this country comes from people who actively hate it – those who appear to advocate for killing as many Jews ‘as possible’ or who think white people are ‘dogs and monkeys’ – the notion that Reform represents an ‘existential’ threat is obviously scaremongering hyperbole. Certainly, at the moment, a third of the electorate don’t agree.
When liberal-left dignitaries invoke the word ‘populism’ in such a derogatory fashion, they invariably have in mind demagoguery, the inclination by statesmen to appeal to the most grave concerns and fears of the populace, and promise in turn simple remedies – remedies which they either could not possibly deliver, or which would have a detrimental effect on the country if they did.
Some of Reform’s proposals in recent years have met this criterion. These include promising to nationalise the steel and water industries, and scrap the two-child benefit cap, all of which don’t cohere with their otherwise free-market stance, and which would all come at a punitive cost. Yet even Reform have started to show signs of coming to terms with reality, conceding that you can’t promise the earth to a restless yet jaundiced electorate that has had its fill of broken promises: in November, Farage announced modifications to the party’s fiscal policies, admitting that substantial tax cuts were ‘not realistic’ until spending is brought under control and borrowing costs reduced.
The same kind of realism has been conspicuously absent among that other ascendent, more recent, and far more naive populist movement: the Green party. Under the stewardship of Zack Polanski this organisation has jettisoned most pretence at being ‘green’ in its policies and has instead become green in its attitude. Seeing fertile appeal among a traditional hard left that has never understood economics, and appealing to the worst inclinations of a Generation Z mindset that believes everything should be free, and that all problems can be solved by ‘being really nice’, Polanski has steered his party into the realm of fantasy. His policies include seeking to weaken further our national borders, legalising most hard drugs, printing money and taxing to the hilt the super-rich. This cocktail of deranged utopianism would bring ruination upon this country.
Even those on the orthodox left, those whose remit is not to appeal to the most credulous instincts of the politically illiterate, recognise the folly of Polanski’s particular brand of populism. Only this week, the Fabian Society warned that the Greens were offering ‘unicorn’ solutions, with its general secretary, Joe Dromey, saying that Polanski’s wealth tax ‘won’t solve the kind of fiscal challenge that we face…we won’t be able to fund the public services that we need just by a wealth tax that affects the top 0.1 per cent of the population.’
Dromey naturally included Reform as the other dangerous face of populism: ‘one is offering you a unicorn, the other’s peddling hatred’. Such remarks are mandatory for those on the left, irrespective of hue. Progressive voices will always target Reform, forever spreading alarm and instilling fear about its ‘hatred’, because such verbal posturing assuages their egos and serves well their public image. By ignoring the biggest threat to this country today, its fragmentation along sectarian lines, through their evasion and by continually changing the subject, progressives permit themselves to look virtuous and superior to those ghastly, vulgarian merchants of ‘hate’.
Of course Sir Chris Powell doesn’t want ‘to allow Reform UK to have a free run’, and he needn’t tell Keir Starmer this. Our Prime Minister ensured as much last year by postponing local and mayoral elections in areas the party were widely predicted to win.
And that is why Starmer and those on the left will always invoke the bogeyman of Reform and forever diabolise its brand of ‘populism’: they just don’t trust the people.
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