KEIR Starmer’s Labour Government are “giving an open goal” to Reform UK with a mix of “unpopular decisions” and “poor communication”, according to experts.
It comes after a week which saw Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall confirm there would be no compensation handed to women born in the 1950s who were not sufficiently made aware of changes to the state pension age.
It led to huge pushback from Waspi campaigners and opposition parties as well as Labour’s own MPs.
But this certainly hasn’t been the only unpopular decision Labour have made since winning the General Election in July. Far from it, really.
Case in point: The scrapping of the Winter Fuel Payment – which has also seen huge pushback, as millions of pensioners across the UK lost the money going into the freezing winter months. And then there's the two-child benefit cap.
“Labour are certainly continuing to feed into a narrative around unpopular decisions,” said Mark McGeoghegan – a writer and academic at the University of Glasgow.
“Which benefits Reform UK. [But] it benefits every opposition party because it just lends to them, having more fodder to attack Labour with.”
He added that despite the pushback, how unpopular the Waspi decision will ultimately prove to be with the public is still “uncertain”.
‘I think there's also a question of who it's unpopular with. It's going to be unpopular with older voters, right? I think we can probably take that for granted,” McGeoghegan told the Sunday National.
“But those are also not the voters that Labour won in the election, and they're not the voters that Labour are going after.”
He added: “So it might help Reform UK to gain ground with those older voters if they can take advantage of increased disaffection with politics generally.”
But the academic said that what is most concerning for Labour is how these decisions are being communicated.
“[Labour] are doing it in a way that seems quite disjointed. The [Conservative/LibDem] coalition government between 2010 and 2015 made lots of unpopular decisions but they did so in a way that, first of all, was consistent with what they said they were going to do before the election,” he said.
“Whereas there was no telegraphing of this Waspi decision, there was no telegraphing of the decision over the Winter Fuel Payment, there was no telegraphing of the decision over national insurance tax rises for employers.”
McGeoghegan said there is disconnect between Labour’s pre-election promises and the decisions they have made so far in government.
“Labour have made these decisions in isolation rather than being part of a package that can then be sold to the country,” he said.
“That lack of coherent political narrative is what I would be a bit more concerned about than the unpopularity of the individual decisions.”
Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment, an expert in the field of political marketing at the University of Dundee, said Labour’s issues also stem from decisions made before the election.
“Although Labour had a solid victory in terms of numbers, it was weak in a number of ways,” she said.
“Generally speaking, the data suggests that people weren't particularly happy with either Labour or the Conservatives UK-wide, and so they were voting for Labour because they didn't want the Conservatives.
“Labour's marketing contributed to that in the election because they kept focusing on attacking the Conservatives, saying, 'buy our product because at least it's not the other one', rather than saying what they were going to do.
“So, when they got elected, it was more an anti-vote Conservative vote rather than a pro-Labour one. That sets them up for trouble once they're in power.”
Lees-Marshment said Labour have tried to respond to that predicament in a number of ways – including the release of new pledges.
The Prime Minister announced his “Plan for Change” earlier this month following a backlash to the Budget, plummeting poll ratings and the first resignation from his Cabinet.
Ministers and officials, meanwhile, have insisted it is not a reset after just five months in office.
“That's good practice, but we always say do it before the election,” the academic said.
She added that discontent for Labour, as well as the other main parties, combined with a lack of responsiveness", is a huge opportunity for Reform UK.
Lees-Marshment said this was particularly the case for issues like immigration.
"If Labour don't address the immigration issue, and given that the Conservatives failed to deliver on promises to address it, [it] is a significant opportunity. It's exactly the right conditions for a party like Reform UK."
