Dead man walking: The PM is toast after a string of controversies and failures (Image: Getty)

Farage and Reform look set to be the beneficiaries of Labour’s incompetence (Image: Getty)

With their failings so painfully exposed, mud-slinging is all Labour has left.

Hate, division, and ideology are the battlegrounds of British politics and the war of words will only get more vicious in the three years to the next General Election.

So much so, the party was ordered to can a US-style hit job advert crammed with controversial quotes from Reform politicians.

Instead, Labour has given it an airing on social media, asking audiences to decide for themselves. They imply Reform – the party set to wipe Labour from the political map in a fortnight and in years to come – is nasty, racist, unwelcoming, and thrives on division and hate.

Labour said: “Our uncensored party election broadcast exposes comments made by Reform politicians that are too offensive to be aired on TV. We must reveal the true extent of the appalling views Nigel Farage and the people behind him really hold. It’s down to us to make sure voters see it to show why we need to beat Reform.”

Will voters be bothered? Probably not. Too much despair has happened on Labour’s watch for that.

And the depths to which Labour has now plummeted show the pickle they are in. They have been exposed as economically illiterate, making life worse for millions rather than delivering on their promise of change.

Less than two years ago, Sir Keir Starmer said the “sunlight of hope” was shining on Britain again after Labour won a landslide election victory. Instead, his tenure has seen a dark cloud hang over the country.

The crisis is so bad that local Labour councillors are refusing to mention Starmer’s name on the doorstep.

The party’s attack video features a lone actress sitting in a pub downing a pint, reciting utterances made by Reform candidates, councillors and MPs, in a send-up of father-of-four Mr Farage.

But give this a thought.

As things stand, with the vote split on both the left and the right, it is conceivable Britain could find itself in a worse position in three years’ time.

Can you imagine a Labour-Green-Lib Dem coalition? Or one in which any one of the Tories, Reform, Restore Britain, and Advance UK unite?

Holier than thou Labour minister Chris Bryant, a long-time critic of Mr Farage and the parties he has led, said he was “sceptical that any party political broadcast could shock me”.

Strap in because things are about to get particularly nasty.

Speaking in 2020, after delivering the seismic Brexit result, Mr Farage said: “We were almost lone voices in the wind. This is a liberation, make no mistake about it. I always tell my kids that when I am dead, I am going to be really popular.”

Words and cheap left-wing election propaganda won’t derail Mr Farage and the unstoppable march of Reform UK. It’s Starmer who is the dead man walking.

Keir Starmer and Labour Know They Are Beaten – What Was Their Last Political Tactic?

The headline that Keir Starmer and Labour “know they are beaten” belongs to the intense political atmosphere that surrounded the party during the spring of 2026. At that point, Labour was facing serious electoral setbacks, Reform UK was making substantial gains, the Greens were challenging Labour from the left, and pressure on Starmer’s leadership was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The phrase “they only have one tactic left” is political rhetoric rather than an established fact. But it reflects a genuine strategic problem that Labour faced: how could the party prevent its support from being divided among Reform, the Greens, the Conservatives and other challengers?

The problem became particularly visible during the May 2026 local elections.

Labour suffered major losses across England, while Reform UK made significant advances, particularly in areas that had traditionally been regarded as Labour strongholds. Reform won control of Sunderland, Gateshead and South Tyneside and also ended Labour’s long-standing control of Barnsley.

These results placed Starmer under considerable political pressure.

Before the elections, there had already been warnings that Labour could suffer an historically poor result. Analysis published by the Guardian before polling day suggested that Labour could lose a very large number of council seats, while Reform and the Greens were expected to gain ground.

The eventual results did not simply produce a straightforward Conservative-Labour contest. Instead, they demonstrated the increasingly fragmented nature of British politics.

Labour was being challenged from multiple directions.

Reform was competing for voters who had previously supported Labour, particularly in parts of northern England and the so-called Red Wall. The Greens were also attracting voters who regarded Labour as insufficiently left-wing. The Conservatives remained an important competitor on the centre-right, while the Liberal Democrats retained significant strength in particular areas.

That fragmentation created an obvious strategic incentive for Labour: persuade voters that supporting smaller parties could ultimately produce an outcome they did not want.

Starmer used this argument explicitly during the final stages of the May campaign. He sought to portray both Reform and the Greens as parties that were not ready to govern and urged voters considering alternatives to Labour to think about the consequences. The Guardian described his final campaign pitch as an attempt to reach voters who were moving towards Reform and the Greens.

This was the political tactic suggested by the headline: turn the election into a choice between Labour and its challengers rather than allowing voters to treat Reform, the Greens or other parties as independent alternatives.

There is an important distinction, however, between describing such a strategy and concluding that it was successful.

The local election results demonstrated that large numbers of voters were prepared to move away from Labour despite the warnings. Reform’s advances across northern England were particularly significant.

In Sunderland, for example, Reform won 58 of the 75 council seats, reducing Labour to only five. The result ended decades of Labour dominance in a city that had long been considered one of the party’s safest political environments.

Other Labour heartlands experienced similarly dramatic changes.

The significance of these results went beyond the number of councillors lost. They raised questions about whether Labour could maintain its coalition of working-class voters, metropolitan voters and progressive supporters that had helped produce its landslide general-election victory in 2024.

Reuters reported in May that Starmer was fighting for his political survival less than two years after that landslide victory.

Yet it would be inaccurate to suggest that Labour had simply accepted defeat.

Starmer remained defiant after the local elections and said he intended to continue as prime minister. He acknowledged that the results were difficult but rejected immediate calls for his resignation.

Within Labour, however, the debate over leadership became increasingly serious.

Some MPs argued that Starmer should leave office, while others believed he should remain and attempt to rebuild the party. The disagreement reflected a wider question about whether Labour’s problems were primarily about leadership or whether they reflected deeper changes in the British electorate.

That question became increasingly important because Reform’s rise could not be explained simply by dissatisfaction with one individual.

Reform had developed a political identity centred on immigration, national sovereignty, taxation, welfare and opposition to what it described as the established political system. Its success therefore represented competition over both voters and political territory.

At the same time, Labour faced pressure from the Greens.

The Gorton and Denton by-election in February 2026 demonstrated the scale of that challenge. Green candidate Hannah Spencer won the seat, while Reform finished second and Labour third. Reuters described the result as evidence of the Greens’ growing challenge to Labour, particularly among voters on the political left.

Labour therefore had a difficult strategic problem.

If it concentrated too heavily on attacking Reform, it risked appearing to ignore voters moving towards the Greens. If it focused on the Greens, it could leave Reform with more room to expand among former Labour voters. If it concentrated on the Conservatives, it risked treating an increasingly fragmented political system as though Britain were still operating primarily as a two-party contest.

One response was to encourage tactical voting.

The idea was that voters who might normally support different parties could temporarily support the candidate most capable of defeating a particular rival. This became particularly visible in the Makerfield by-election, where Green and Liberal Democrat supporters were reported to be considering tactical support for Labour to prevent Reform from winning.

But tactical voting is difficult to control from party headquarters.

Voters are not blocks that can simply be transferred from one party to another. Political scientists quoted in the Makerfield coverage specifically cautioned against treating different groups of voters as interchangeable units.

That is why the idea of Labour having “one tactic left” should be treated cautiously.

There was no single magic strategy capable of reversing the party’s difficulties. Labour could attack Reform, warn about the consequences of a divided vote, appeal to former supporters, promote its record in government and attempt to persuade voters that smaller parties could not provide an effective government.

But none of these approaches guaranteed electoral recovery.

The leadership question eventually became decisive.

After months of pressure, Starmer resigned as prime minister on July 20, 2026. In his final speech outside Downing Street, he formally offered his resignation and said he was passing responsibility to Andy Burnham. The official government record confirms that July 20 was Starmer’s final day as prime minister.

Burnham subsequently became Labour leader and prime minister, marking the end of Starmer’s period in Downing Street.

That development fundamentally changes how the original headline should be understood today.

The argument that Starmer and Labour had “one tactic left” was relevant to the political battle surrounding the May elections and the subsequent leadership crisis. It is no longer accurate to describe Starmer as Labour’s current leader.

What remains relevant is the underlying political problem: Labour’s electoral coalition had become vulnerable to competition from several parties simultaneously.

Burnham inherited a party that had won a landslide in 2024 but suffered substantial setbacks less than two years later. His leadership was presented as an attempt to reset Labour’s political direction. When he became Labour leader in July, Burnham described the change as an opportunity for the party to become more united and said Labour had a “last chance to change”.

The challenge for Labour is therefore broader than any individual leader.

The party has to compete in an increasingly fragmented electoral environment in which Reform can attract voters on its right, the Greens can attract voters on its left, and other parties can exploit local and regional weaknesses.

The 2026 elections showed that traditional assumptions about Labour’s electoral map can no longer be taken for granted. Long-standing Labour areas changed hands, while voters demonstrated that they were willing to experiment with alternatives.

At the same time, the results do not establish that Labour is permanently defeated. Electoral politics can change rapidly, especially in a fragmented system. Local elections are also not direct substitutes for general elections, and their results need to be interpreted within their specific electoral context.

The more significant lesson from the Starmer era is that a large parliamentary majority does not necessarily guarantee long-term political security.

Labour entered government in 2024 with an overwhelming Commons majority. By 2026, it faced serious competition from several directions and an internal leadership crisis. Starmer ultimately left office before completing the parliamentary term.

The original claim that Labour had only one tactic left therefore captures the pressure the party experienced, but not the full complexity of the situation.

Labour’s response involved attacks on its opponents, appeals to tactical voting, attempts to recover disillusioned supporters and arguments about the risks of replacing an established governing party with smaller challengers.

None of these strategies existed in isolation.

Ultimately, the political transformation of 2026 was driven by a broader fragmentation of the British electorate. The rise of Reform and the Greens, alongside continuing Conservative and Liberal Democrat competition, made it increasingly difficult for Labour to rely on the traditional assumptions that had shaped British politics for decades.

Starmer’s departure closed one chapter of that story.

The next chapter belongs to Burnham and the Labour Party he now leads. Whether Labour can rebuild its coalition will depend not on one final tactic, but on how successfully it responds to a political landscape in which voters have more alternatives — and appear increasingly willing to use them.