With the Tories beaten, Labour’s next threat comes from even further right

Reform leader Nigel Farage, speaking in Newport earlier this month, believes Reform can be Labour’s biggest opponents in Wales. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Two key rules of politics are to always look ahead, and to understand your opponent. And so it is that just months after crushing the Conservatives in a general election, many Labour MPs are bracing for fresh challenges and a new foe – Reform UK.

Nigel Farage’s party is in parliamentary terms a minnow, its five MPs giving it little more than 1% of the Commons strength enjoyed by Keir Starmer. But many within Labour believe that by the time of the next election, things could be very different.