Is Labour turning into the nasty party?

Labour’s hardline stance on immigration has been widely criticised, including by some people who you might presume would be supportive of it. David Maddox examines whether the party’s stance risks damaging its reputation. When one of Nigel Farage’s long term and loyal allies suggests that Keir Starmer’s party is being “nasty” by publishing videos of migrant raids, alarm bells should be ringing in Labour HQ.

Gawain Towler has carefully nurtured the messaging around Farage’s inflammatory, hardline, anti-migrant rhetoric for many years through Ukip, the Brexit Party and until recently with Reform. And yet even he was horrified by what he saw from Labour this week. That was before the home secretary announced that asylum seekers on small boats would not be allowed UK citizenship in almost any circumstances. As Labour MP Stella Creasy noted, that meant even Paddington Bear would be denied.

Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness. Even before this new wave of anti-migrant policies were properly unleashed in November Labour peer Ann Mallalieu was warning Starmer that he was turning them into the “nasty party”. The “nasty party” phrase was infamously coined by Theresa May in 2002, when she was assessing why the Conservatives had lost the previous two elections so badly. Nobody liked the Conservatives then, but it seems that Starmer’s Labour government risks becoming equally unlikable.

Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government. But that is as far as it goes. Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”. One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”.

This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales. Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime. It is no secret why Labour is pursuing this hardline migration policy. When a series of polls put Reform UK top and various projections show that they are poised to win scores of seats – including Angela Rayner’s Ashton-under-Lyne constituency – then it does concentrate the mind.

The Opinium poll at the weekend actually revealed that Farage was the biggest reason people might not vote Reform. However, the party’s tough-on-migration message was the biggest reason people would vote for them. So the logic is clear that to take on Reform, they need to be tough on migration – both legal and illegal. Given that Reform, the Tories and now Labour seem to be trying to outdo one another with tough migration rhetoric and policies, while all simultaneously attempting to curry favour with Donald Trump, it leaves very little choice for voters wanting to find a party that is not nasty.

One possibility could be the Lib Dems who have been a bit softer on the issue. But even they are avoiding talking about the issue and refusing to condemn Labour. When The Independent contacted the Lib Dems about the videos on Sunday their response was: “We’re going to leave this one.”. Perhaps not surprising given that Lib Dems are also at risk of losing voters to Reform. A Techne poll two weeks ago showed that 22 per cent of Lib Dem voters in 2024 had switched to Reform. Former leader Tim Farron had noted that many people he spoke to on the doorsteps were split between voting Lib Dem or Reform.

Robert Hayward, the leading Tory peer and pollster, told The Independent: “It’s not surprising because the Lib Dems pick up a lot of the anti-establishment vote which is also attracted to Reform. That’s why you get people voting Lib Dem in the west country but then voting for Brexit.”. Without the Lib Dems on the playing field that just leaves the Green Party who could not wait to get stuck in about the migrant raid videos. However, with just four MPs and 7 per cent of the vote, they are still only a fringe option.