‘How to fight Reform and un-cancel the future – lessons from Sheffield’

May 2025 saw Brits from Durham to Devon waking up to their first Reform councillors.

In June, Sheffield joined them, as a by election in Stocksbridge sent a former UKIP councillor back to the Town Hall under new colours. Here are 14 lessons from that campaign.

The 14 lessons:

Although we lost, there were many positives. First: the Tories are dead. They polled 6% in a ward that they won 4 years ago. On our side, we spoke to over 3000 voters during the campaign, with over 50 volunteers helping from across South Yorkshire.

1. Contact rates and conversations matter. Reform polled close to their national average in a ward in which the right traditionally does better than its national position.

2. We were helped by comrades from across South Yorkshire. If you are facing Reform next year, now is the time to twin with colleagues who are not.

Despite this, we still retained only around 60% of our 2024 voters. Last year, I wrote that Labour should attract ‘Riot sceptic – Redistributor – Reformers’ (Labour-possible Reform voters) and keep ‘Impatient – Immigration-sceptic – Non-Identitarians’ (Reform-curious Labour voters). Times have changed! In Stocksbridge the RRRs were not currently open to a conversation with us; thankfully, the IIIs still are.

3. We cannot lose the IIIs. We must focus on their issues: high prices, long waits for GPs and – yes, sorry – “Stop The Boats”.

4. We should also focus on ‘Nervous – Networked – (currently) Non-Labour’ voters. NNNs are Lib Dems and Greens who follow the news, are not averse to Labour, but need convincing early in a campaign that only Labour can beat Reform.
Reform’s DDDs – Decline, Disorder, Degeneracy
Reform’s campaign consisted of a leaflet, a lot of online content and high visibility outside polling stations.

5. Make sure your council’s lawyers are ready to enforce the rules around canvassing at polling stations. They will need to be!
Despite this limited presence, Reform won 33% in Stocksbridge. They relied on a message of ‘Decline – Disorder – Degeneracy’ that will be familiar to any follower of Trump, Orban – and Farage. How can we respond?

The country is in decline – and has been for years.

We cannot deny the decline. A third of Brits born like me in 1980 are poorer than their parents. In Stocksbridge, decline was very visible in the fate of the local steelworks. Farage uses this: “We believe that we are the last chance to restore confidence in the democratic system, to change things”.

6. Too often our opponents sound angry and we don’t. But being the ‘adult in the room’ doesn’t work when many want to burn the room down. People are angry and we should be too: “You’re angry. I’m angry too. Let’s do something about it”.

7. We can all agree that the Tories mucked up Britain. But that line has stopped working. So no more reference to “14 years”.

So now we see disorder in our communities.

Trump had his American Carnage. Farage has the “complete unrecognisability of people’s communities”. He weaves a dystopian web of pot-holed streets, boarded-up shops and (nudge, wink) people not speaking English, hinting that they are all linked.

8. Too many communities do look drab after 14 years of Tory. Oops! We need to fix them, without pandering to Farage’s nudges and winks. When we’ve fixed them, we need to talk about them, so everybody knows it was us who did it.

9. Labour’s Ros Jones retained the Doncaster Mayoralty in part by making May’s campaign a referendum on re-opening the local airport. Every ward needs a similar local priority: “only we will save your leisure centre (and you know we will, because you saw us fixing your pot holes)”.

10. In Doncaster and Stocksbridge, Reform’s online messaging was careful and local until postal votes had dropped, and then ramped up the immigration nudges and winks to turn out their much narrower base on election day. We need a response, particularly to show postal voters the reality of the party they may just be about to vote for.

And that’s because your old parties are degenerate.

This is the nudgiest of nudges – it’s almost a conspiracy theory.

“There never used to be pot holes; now there are loads. And that’s because Labour doesn’t care about you, even though they used to. Now they care about ‘other’ people.” It tells our voters that they can safely vote Reform because Reform is a version of the Labour Party their family used to vote for.

It is Farage’s dog whistle version of the devastatingly-effective Trump ad: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you”.

11. Saying ‘on your side’ isn’t the same as being on your side. We have to talk about the same issues that our residents care about, in the same way that they do. If they are angry about it, and you are not, why aren’t you? That includes training our volunteers to have genuine conversations on the doorstep.

12. A candidate who already serves a community, with a recognisable track record, will attract support. Our loss in Stocksbridge would have been heavier without a great candidate (and local MP).

13. Calling Reform voters fascists, Nazis and all-round bad eggs doesn’t work. Most aren’t, and telling them that they are isn’t going to make them support us (and it might push some Labour voters to Reform).

14. Ruthlessly hold Reform councillors and MPs to account for every missed meeting and community event. How can you be an authentic community voice if you never turn up?

Our loss in Stocksbridge is tough to take. There is no silver bullet to beating Reform (or any opponent). It’s the hard graft of public service. But these 14 points should give hope that we can, in the words of writer Benjamin Tallis, un-cancel the future.

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