Nigel Farage owns the immigration issue today, but that could change (Image: Getty)
Farage has momentum, money and a message that cuts through. He’s just launched Reform UK’s manifesto for the Welsh Parliament elections, predicting the contest will “end the premiership of Sir Keir Starmer”. It includes crowd-pleasing pledges such as income tax cuts and new roads, and there’ll be plenty more as the general election edges closer. But we all know what his big vote-winning pitch will be.
Farage owns the issue that dominates British politics: immigration. He’s the only politician who appears serious about stopping the boats, safeguarding our borders and repairing our broken asylum system. And the money is pouring in. Reform UK received more than £5.4million in large donations in the final three months of last year, more than any other party.
But winning power won’t be easy. Farage will face unprecedented tactical voting from lefties who loathe him. Reform is the party voters are most likely to tactically vote against, polling by More in Common shows.
Another huge threat to Farage is now emerging. And it comes from a direction nobody expected.
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For the first time in decades, a Labour home secretary is getting serious about fixing Britain’s immigration system. Her name is Shabana Mahmood and she’s the only serious politician in the entire cabinet.
She’s just back from a trip to Denmark where she studied one of Europe’s strictest asylum regimes at first hand. The Danes have tightened family reunion rules, restricted permanent residence and required migrants to integrate and contribute before gaining access to the full welfare state.
And it’s working. Asylum applications have plunged and immigration is far more tightly controlled.
Danish PM Mette Frederiksen is aiming for “zero asylum” but she’s no right-wing populist. Instead, she’s leader of the centre-left Social Democrats government.
She’s framed this as a left-wing policy, arguing that uncontrolled migration harms working-class communities most of all.
Mahmood wants Britain to learn from that model, even if it means shrugging off howls of protest from ‘open border’ Labour activists and metropolitan snobs at The Guardian newspaper.
Farage should be terrified. Like most European countries, Denmark has its own populist anti-immigration party, the Danish People’s Party. Support once topped 20%. It’s now collapsed to just 2.6%.
Mahmood is taking radical action and if she succeeds, she could neutralise immigration as a political issue, and with it Farage’s most powerful weapon.
That’s a very big “if” of course. Some of her ideas are already controversial. Reform chairman Zia Yusuf blasted proposals to pay some asylum seeker families up to £40,000 to leave Britain as “a prize for breaking in illegally”.
Mahmood also faces legal limits. She admits Britain cannot deport failed asylum seekers to countries deemed unsafe, including Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan, which just happen to be the three biggest sources of asylum claims.
Her biggest challenge will come from inside her own party. As we know, gutless PM Keir Starmer is likely to U-turn at the first whiff of a back bench rebellion. But if she hangs tough and immigration falls, Nigel Farage could suddenly find his chosen political battlefield looking very different.
One thing may save him. Mahmood may be a serious force but comedians like Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband dominate. These serial bunglers could still hand the election to Farage on a plate.
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