Starmer’s former minister Haigh urges him to rip up tax rules to counter Reform

Sir Keir Starmer’s former transport secretary has urged him to stage an “economic reset” and rip up tax rules to get voters onside after Reform UK’s success in the local elections.

MP Louise Haigh, who resigned as a Cabinet minister in November, said welfare reforms and the loss of winter fuel payments were “totemic” for many voters.

Her comments come after Health Secretary Wes Streeting called Reform UK “a real threat” to Labour, and said he sees them as a “serious opposition force”.

Labour and the Conservatives are under pressure to reverse their parties’ fortunes after Reform picked up 10 councils and more than 600 seats in Thursday’s polls.

Nigel Farage, whose party also gained an MP in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, hailed the results as the end of two-party politics.

Sir Keir has faced calls from his own MPs to change tack after he pledged to go “further and faster” with his plans in response to the polls.

Reports have suggested that Sir Keir could seek to counter Reform UK’s rise with a focus on immigration reforms to be unveiled in an upcoming white paper.

Jo White, the chair of the Red Wall group of Labour MPs, has urged Sir Keir to stop “pussyfooting around” and take a more decisive approach, while backbencher Emma Lewell said the party needs a “change of plan” rather than a “plan for change”.

Ms Haigh said Sir Keir’s response to the polls was “alarming” and failed to acknowledge “any need to change course”, but rather committed to doubling down while “haemorrhaging votes”.

She called for a strategy that is “confident in our values, sets the terms of the debate and takes the fight to Reform, rather than letting the fight come to us,” writing in The Times.

“I believe the only way to achieve that is through an economic reset, through ripping up our self-imposed tax rules and by a serious programme of investment and reindustrialisation.

“Because Nigel Farage is not wooing these voters with a traditionally right-wing offer. He is calling for the nationalisation of steel and water.

“Polling I saw revealed that banning fire-and-rehire was almost as popular among Reform voters as Labour ones.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she will not budge from a pledge not to raise taxes.

The Health Secretary defended Labour on Sunday, urging the public to “give us time” to see through the change the Government has promised.

Mr Streeting said called Reform UK “a real threat”, calling Mr Farage’s party a “serious opposition force”.

“It’s not yet clear whether at the next general election it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challenges, but we’ve got to take that threat seriously,” he told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she understands why voters are “angry” with the Conservatives and she must “come up with a plan that will deliver”, adding that it will be a “slow and steady” effort for her party to regain support.

Conservative co-chairman Nigel Huddleston sought to play down the threat from Reform UK, telling Sky News: “When they’re in a position of delivering things, that’s when the shine comes off.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Labour and the Tories had both made a “mistake” in their handling of Reform UK.

“The Conservatives have been copying Reform policies, Labour is sounding more and more like Reform,” he told Phillips.

“I think the way you defeat Nigel Farage is by calling him out.”