WHAT is going on with Team Starmer’s new “robust” posture against Reform? How did we slide from Starmer echoing Enoch Powell in his “island of strangers” speech in May to Wes Streeting denouncing Reform as “racist” this month?

It’s a welcome shift but looks too based on calculation rather than principle to be trustworthy.

Starmer has been following Morgan McSweeney’s plan to chase Reform voters since the 2024 election. In 2024 Labour canvassers were told Reform supporters were the “hero voters” they needed to win over.

There is some truth here: any left-wing party should be trying to win over working-class voters who have been conned by Farage into thinking he represents their interests. But the way to win these voters over is to offer what Farage cannot: Labour can attract these voters back by offering nationalisation of key industries, investment in “left behind” towns and cities, money for public services and the like, which are all popular with many Reform voters but unpopular with Farage, who is economically basically a Thatcherite.

But Starmer doesn’t want to do any of that hard redistribution. He planned to win over Reform by cheap displays of flags and bigotries. The plan didn’t really work in the 2024 election. The “hero” Reform-to- Labour switchers never really turned up. Instead, Labour got in because Reform split the vote on the right, allowing Starmer to win a huge majority with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn.

The “hero voter” strategy failed but Starmer responded to Labour’s post-election crash in the polls by chasing his “heroes” again, waving his flags.

This reached a nadir in May 2025, when Starmer launched a new migration policy with a speech warning Britain risked “becoming an island of strangers”— using phrases echoing Enoch Powell’s racist 1968  “Rivers of Blood” speech. Worse, Starmer denounced migration in ugly terms, claiming “the damage“ migration “has done to our country is incalculable. Public services and housing access have been placed under too much pressure.”

Starmer kept chasing his “hero voters” as the hard right launched “Operation Raise the Colours,” where right-wing street activists cable-tied St George’s Flags onto lampposts and painted them onto roundabouts.

Asked about this nationalist street theatre, Starmer responded, with his typical awkward phrasing, that “I’m a supporter of flags” adding: “I’m very encouraging of flags, I think they’re patriotic.”

Starmer was trying to pose as a supporter of the “Raise the Colours” gangs but came across like a non-specific flag enthusiast. Also in September, as the same hard right activists launched ugly protests around asylum hotels, Starmer also announced he “completely” understood their demonstrations.

So when Wes Streeting asked this month how it had become “socially acceptable to be racist,” the answer is in part because the Prime Minister didn’t stand up against a growing nationalist street movement with a strong racist element. Instead Starmer tried to ride the wave, ineffectually surfing after “hero voters.”

When Reform MP Sarah Pochin said TV adverts were “full of black and Asian people,” which “drives her mad,” Streeting also took a stronger stand, saying this was a return of “1970s, 1980s-style racism that I thought we had left in the history books.” Starmer also joined in over Reform UK’s plan to cancel Indefinite Leave to Remain status for migrants, saying “I do think it is a racist policy,” which was “immoral.” The Financial Times and other media announced this was “a robust shift in the party’s public stance towards Reform.”

So why the shift? Firstly, there will be some internal pressure in the party. I live in Southampton, where a hard right “Patriots” group, joined by Nick Tenconi’s Ukip, have run persistent protests and marches outside one of our “asylum hotels.”  Labour councillors and members — from all wings of the party, including the most “moderate” — have been a significant part of the generally larger counter-demonstrations.

Many Labour members, councillors and MPs know the growth of the hard nationalist right is a danger, and their displeasure with Starmer trying to bend to the right will have filtered up to Number 10.

However, Team Starmer is very resistant to grassroots pressure and dismissive of even “soft left” or “moderate” complaints, so there are other pressures.

Most obviously Lucy Powell winning the deputy leadership race against Starmer’s wishes: Powell’s run was a very limited protest campaign, the very softest of “soft left” moves, but her comfortable victory obviously rattled Starmer, and included her warning that Labour “won’t win by trying to out-Reform Reform.”

Unfortunately, however, the biggest reason for the apparent shift to a firmer anti-Reform stance, and a rediscovered anti-racism, is another bout of careerism at the top.

Labour MPs can see that a historic defeat is very possible under Starmer, and many ministers are planning to try replacing Sir Keir. Wes Streeting is the main challenger from the right, but knows he has to have at least some “left” cover to run — Lucy Powell’s result shows that even with hundreds of thousands of left members chased out of Labour, a purely right-wing campaign cannot win over the party.

So Streeting has been making “left” noises, including his firmer stand on Reform and racism. In turn Starmer is defending himself from this challenge by also taking this more robust stance.

So while it is welcome, it is completely untrustworthy. Ministers who are willing to talk about the “incalculable damage” of migration one day, but then go all “anti-racist” another can’t be trusted, especially when this “anti-racism” is just part of a factional battle for the top job.

The Labour centrists’ fundamental approach to their lack of popularity is to declare it’s Labour or Reform, and that this simultaneously means Labour need to adopt some of Reform’s politics to win over their voters, and all “left” or “liberal” voters” will have to rally behind Labour to beat Reform.

It’s the “grand coalition of the centre” plan from France that sees Macron adopt ever more right-wing policies while demanding voters back him against the hard right of Le Pen. The new “robust” anti-Reform noises are just an adjustment — possibly a temporary one — to this fundamental plan.