Bruised britain

In recent weeks, voters in Sheffield – as elsewhere in the country – have woken up to a letter from Nigel Farage. It tells them: “The choice is now clear. Labour and the Conservatives pretend that Britain isn’t broken. Reform UK…know that it is”.

We cannot deny the difficult moment our families, communities and services find themselves in. Brits born in the 1980s are poorer than their parents. Shiregreen in North Sheffield used to have over 10 pubs; now it has one. Between 2010 and 2024, Sheffield city council lost £856 for every resident, entirely because of Tory austerity measures, leading to playgrounds without repairs and libraries lacking books.

This has played out across the country, and it is pulling at the bonds which hold society together. But we are not broken. Over 8 million Brits help to run clubs and voluntary groups every evening and weekend. Half of us regularly help our family, friends and neighbours. Because that’s who we are – we look out for each other. And, after a decade of demolition, the state is being rebuilt, brick by painful brick.

This is a bruised country, not a broken one. But Nigel Farage keeps punching the bruise, in the hope that the skin will break. Because the deeper the wound, the greater that voters feel personal and national decline, the more that Farage benefits. Nearly half of voters who struggle to make ends meet or who have to go without essentials are now supporting Reform. This should worry Labour leaders deeply.

Worry – but not despair. Gorton and Denton shows that voters who are instinctively against Reform will look for the most viable alternative. If that is not Labour, they will inevitably turn elsewhere. But the Greens, at local level, not only destroy the opportunity for cooperation between Labour councils and a Labour government, but also play into Farage’s hands. Paradoxically, whilst vehemently attacking Labour, the Greens – with their emphasis on identity politics, dividing people rather than seeking to unite them, and their very similar style to that of Farage – are helping what should be a common enemy by fracturing left-of-centre politics.

There is a role for every Labour member and trade unionist to fight the far right in our own communities: that is why we have written But What Can I Do? We start from two simple premises. First, our communities are our communities – just as the St George’s cross and the union jack are our flags. We will cede none of them to the far right – but we do just that when Labour members and trade unionists are not visible in their communities, or when they dally with Zack Polanski’s populist rhetoric. Second, we genuinely want to listen to Reform-curious voters. On a podcast last year, a London-based commentator suggested that Labour faces a choice between its “natural supporters – graduates and ethnic minorities” or “white working-class reactionaries”. This moral superiority is wrong and is patronising to voters of all ethnicities.

We suggest ways in which activists can campaign against the far right on social media, in community groups, face-to-face with other residents, and through holding local Reform politicians to account. We suggest some golden rules, which should come naturally to any activist rooted in their community:

• We are the champions of people who rely on their wages and public services, and who play by the rules. Our values are your values.
• We speak normally, dropping meaningless phrases like ‘going further and faster’, ‘working at pace’, ‘facing the hard mile’, and instead use kind of language that the people we seek to represent use in their everyday lives. Where something isn’t right, and voters are angry, we’re angry too. We say what we mean: ‘we look out for each other’; ‘when you put in, you get back’. And we talk about what makes life worth living: loving friends and family; decent homes; close-knit communities; well-paid work giving dignity and purpose; and hope that the future will be better than today.
• We get things done and focus on the things that matter to local people. For most people, that means the cost of living and public services. Farage’s letter to Sheffield voters leads with it too. But his declinism is helped by the sorry state of so many of our streets and communities – vape shops, fly tips, graffiti. Britain needs a lick of paint and it needs it now. That is why Pride of Place initiatives are so important. However, they need to be delivered with people, not to them, and they need to be accelerated. The inertia which characterises the whole political system needs to be shaken out, and the excuses that “things can’t be done immediately” need to be robustly rejected.
• We point out where Reform has failed. As of March 2026, a full 45 councillors elected in May 2025 have been kicked out, defected, suspended or resigned, as have two of the five MPs elected in July 2024. We are vocal where Reform’s focus on cultural issues like flags masks an inability to solve the problems that matter to voters. We take the fight to Reform over their instincts on the NHS and their votes against workers’ rights. Not once, but again and again.
• We champion our communities. We want our community to succeed and understand the deep sense that our streets, parks and town centres are ‘going downhill’. We don’t instinctively defend the status quo.
• Finally, we understand Reform’s appeal. Farage is a master storyteller, weaving a believable web of nostalgia for the past, despair at the present and excitement for the future. Too many on the left see Farage and Reform as a negative movement. That is only part of the story – it misses the sunny past and the supposedly even-brighter future. We have to match that hope and aspiration.
• Above all, we should stop being the “establishment” – embodied, for example, by the knee-jerk reaction of “we can’t do that”, when there is a call to cap those profiting from the mayhem in the Middle East. We are historically Britain’s radicals, and we must be so again today. Taking on those profiteering, and using the power of national and local government to better protect people and promote their interests, should be our first instinct.

Farage’s letter to Sheffield ends with a warning: “you will not get the future you deserve without us.” It is Labour’s task to prove him wrong. It is time to set aside factional politics, appealing only to a narrow section of the electorate, and to assume Labour’s historic role in reaching out across the issues which divide, to offer instead a unity of purpose for a more cohesive, engaged and compassionate society.

The fight against Reform is the most important political struggle that most of us will ever face. It is a battle that we, our communities, and our country cannot afford to lose.

Image credit: underclass via flickr