Comparing 2015 pre-Brexshit Labour politics to now is pretty pointless. In 2025, with Trump in the White House, and the far right making gains all over Europe, sponsored by Putin & Musk, Labour are in a dogfight to keep the far-right out of power in this country. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Starmer and Cooper are cowards. Letting Farage set the agenda. Not what we voted for!
So what are we seeing here then, some kind of zen master "to defeat the far right we must become the far right" BS?
Nope. What we are seeing is Labour trying to leave Farage as few open goals as possible in 2029.
How exactly? By giving him everything he wants? If you try and position yourself as an ersatz populist you will always lose out to the genuine article.
No, of course not, but by giving Farage as few credible/valid controversies to exploit as possible. If he has to rely on making shit up, he's on much weaker ground.
Quite apart from the fact that Farage has never once given a shit whether something is valid/credible, the "controversies" you're talking about here are innocent vulnerable families who will be torn apart just for the sake of political theatre. It's ghoulish to see that and go "Hmm, yes, sensible".
No he's not. Farage runs a post-truth MAGA clone, which only depends on core issue validation which is entirely what this Government seems hell bent on providing. His base is low information & emotion driven, so they only way you undermine that is by destroying it's basic principles
By way of example, Farages last big project was Brexit. EU membership never polled above 8% on issues ranking before the Tories gave it salience. Farage was never officially involved in the Leave campaign and most of his talking points were utter bull. And yet here we are.