> Labour insiders “see a silver lining in the rise of Reform”, because it means the government can terrorise Green voters on the doorstep and say “it’s fine if you want to vote Green, but you’ll have Nigel Farage in Downing Street”.
Ask them how well that worked in Runslip. The total votes for Reform + Conservative went up by about 500 from 2024 to 2025. The total votes for Labour dropped by 10,000. Labour lost by six votes. If they'd managed to convince *seven* former Labour voters that they were actually better than Reform, they'd have won the by election.
That's the kind of thing that should cause a leadership contest. If it doesn't, I hope the Greens manage to capitalise on it by showing that the choices are an indistinguishable mix of Labour, Conservatives and Reform, or them.
If the choices are Farage, or someone doing a second-rate Farage impression, voters won't bother to turn up. Being *very slightly less bad than the alternative* is not a vote winner.
The Democrats in the USA have shown this repeatedly. Their policies are basically 'do what the Republicans are doing, but a bit more slowly'. People don't look at that and see an alternative worth putting effort into campaigning or voting.
