Romping Reform shows two-party politics has been smashed to pieces

With the Lib Dems and Greens in the mix alongside Reform, five-party politics is the new normal – so will our antiquated first-past-the-post voting system be next to go, asks Andrew Grice

Labour can take no comfort from the Conservatives’ woes after Reform UK’s spectacular advance. Reform’s win in the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election, Labour’s 49th safest seat, and its local election gains, show that Keir Starmer’s strategy of portraying his government as “disruptors” isn’t working.

The logic behind it seemed sound: Starmer told his cabinet in February the government would be “disrupted” by Nigel Farage’s party unless Labour showed voters it is not defending the status quo. It’s a view held by Morgan McSweeney, his influential chief of staff, and by Tony Blair.

But many Labour figures, including some ministers, always doubted this approach. They will feel vindicated by Farage’s advance in Thursday’s local authority and mayoral elections, as well as in Runcorn, and press for a rethink. These critics believe any government is going to be seen as the establishment by an increasingly impatient and angry electorate. So, talking about “rewiring the state” and reforming the civil service or even abolishing NHS England isn’t going to cut it.

Standards – not structures – matter (as Blair himself argued on education policy). Labour must show tangible improvements to public services and living standards – and soon. Two measures that will hit some people in the pocket (means-testing the winter fuel allowance and cutting disability benefits) loomed large on the doorsteps ahead of these elections.

Starmer’s instinct is to double down on his strategy – to go “further and faster” in delivering his “plan for change”. But his internal critics say presenting the prime minister as a disruptor who, like Donald Trump and Farage, wants to smash a broken system is not “authentic Starmer”.

Indeed, the “Sir” before “Keir” makes him an unlikely revolutionary. Far better, one minister told me, to play to Starmer’s strengths as providing solid, stable, grown-up leadership – as voters acknowledged he has done recently on the world stage. “Trump and Farage have a vibe. It’s not about policy. But what is Keir’s?” one senior Labour figure asked.

Starmer’s trump card against Farage could be patriotic leadership in a dangerous, uncertain world. That could include a bold reset with the EU “in the national economic interest”; a more proactive industrial strategy; and the forthcoming strategic defence review. True, taking on Farage on the EU would be a risk in the red wall in the north and Midlands. But it’s an argument that can be won: the best means to deliver economic growth with reliable allies (no need to mention Trump).

These elections show that trying to “out-Farage Farage” – as Labour has attempted on immigration, overseas aid and welfare – doesn’t work. A white paper on immigration coming soon might make the same mistake, and drive more left-of-centre voters into the arms of the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Labour must now resolve its dilemma on how to appeal to the progressive voters who enabled it to form a winning coalition last year while also tackling the Farage threat.

Like Trump, Starmer will need to be in voters’ faces every day to translate his image on the global stage to the domestic issues that will decide the next general election. And to forget about his (laudable) statement that after the psychodrama of the Tory years, “politics should tread lightly on people’s lives”.

The worst thing both Labour and the Tories could do is to dismiss Thursday’s results as another blip like the rise of the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s, which fizzled out. I think it’s much more like the seismic change a hundred years ago when Labour supplanted the Liberal Party and became the opposition. Even more seismic, in fact: these elections prove our two-party system has been smashed, and replaced by five-party politics, with the Lib Dems and Greens in the mix alongside Reform (as well as the nationalists in Scotland and Wales). I suspect it’s here to stay.

This earthquake will, in time, produce a fresh debate about our antiquated first-past-the-post system. It is unfit for the new era. I know Starmer is not going to change a system that delivered him a landslide last year. But the age-old argument that first-past-the-post provides stability is busted at a time of voter volatility and permanently broken tribal allegiances.

Labour could, at least, acknowledge there is a debate to be had about the voting system. For a start, it should reverse the Tories’ self-interested decision to replace the supplementary vote previously used in mayoral elections – allowing voters to list a first and second preference – with first-past-the-post. This allowed Labour to retain the West of England mayoralty with just 25 per cent of the votes on Thursday.

The implications are huge: in a fragmented five-party system, Reform could conceivably win a general election, or at least be the largest party, with a smaller share of the vote than the 34 per cent Labour won last year. Prime Minister Farage? It’s no longer just his dream; it could now become the country’s nightmare.