Labour’s overdue war on Farage and Brexit has arrived. Here’s how to fight it

The Roman senator and historian Cato had a catchphrase, coined when he was agitating for war against a rival city-state. It was “Carthago delenda est”, or “Carthage must be destroyed.” So keen was Cato on the phrase and the aim, that he even used it to conclude speeches that had nothing to do with Carthage, which was in what is now Tunisia.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have belatedly woken up to the idea that Nigel Farage must go the same way as Carthage. This is not before time; there may still be a maximum of 46 months until the next general election, but Reform can no longer be given a free pass on the grounds that they are finishing off the Tories. The far right party are building double-digit poll leads and regularly breaking the 30% polling barrier that many analysts believed would be their limit.

After his conference attacks on Farage as a snake-oil salesman with racist policies, the Times reports that Labour will now attempt to pin the disaster of Brexit on him. This is to be done ahead of what seem like inevitable tax rises in November’s budget in order to fill a £20-30 billion gap in the public finances, partly caused by a big downgrade of productivity forecasts.

The paper’s Steven Swinford and Oliver Wright said: “Starmer and Reeves are expected to argue that, if it hadn’t been for Brexit, this type of downgrade would not have been needed, and to cite official figures suggesting that if Britain had not left the European Union the economy would be about £120 billion bigger by 2035 than current forecasts suggest it will be.

“The message is simple: Farage is ultimately to blame as the man who delivered Brexit with ‘easy sloganeering’ then walked away from the aftermath rather than putting in the hard yards. Or, to put it another way: Farage, not us, is responsible for putting up your taxes.”

Making Farage own the billion lost since we left the EU sounds good on paper. It provides a scapegoat for unpopular choices, and it has something important in its favour – it is true.

Brexit was Farage’s life’s work, and he spent years assuring the country that it was heading for the sunlit uplands rather than the bankruptcy courts if only it voted to leave.

Instead, the Office for Budget Responsibility says Brexit has cost the British economy 4% of its GDP in lost trade, lost investment, lost competition and therefore less productivity and less growth. Other expert research puts the figure even higher than the 4%, which works out to about £120 billion lost by 2035.

Had we stayed in the EU, at current taxation levels, the government would now have another £47 billion to spend. Black hole, what black hole? With that money, we could have almost doubled defence spending, or increased NHS spending by a quarter. Or the government could have been generous, every penny off income tax costs £5 billion.

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Rats in a Sack

This is damage that Starmer and Reeves can rightly argue has been done by one N. Farage, the self-styled Mr Brexit. But the tactic is fraught with danger.

First, blaming others for your own tax rises didn’t work for Labour when it put up employer national insurance and told everyone it was all the Tories’ fault. Second, so far, Farage has been a Teflon politician. Nothing sticks – not racism, Russia, his huge outside earnings, his love of Trump or his girlfriend buying him a house.

Yet someone other than Starmer and Reeves must be blamed for tax rises, and Farage must be destroyed. Therefore, expect to hear a lot more about Brexit from Labour over the next few weeks.

And judging by the word salad of Richard Tice’s response, Reform do sound a bit rattled. He ranted: “First Keir blamed the Tories, now he is blaming Nigel, reaffirming his brand of ‘two-tier Keir’. Third time lucky, he should send Rachel back to the complaints department. Hypocrite-in-chief Keir is running out of people to blame after over a year in office. Voters know he is to blame.”

More importantly, attacking Farage for Brexit opens up some interesting thoughts. First, tha the Brexit blame game must be relentless now, going way beyond the Budget. Labour will have to persuade millions that the state of the steel industry is down to Brexit, that the state of the NHS is down to Brexit, that higher inflation is down to Brexit, that crises in hospitality and agriculture are down to Brexit too. Throw in the introduction of new biometric tests at the border with the EU and the resulting travel chaos too. All can be blamed wholly or partly on Brexit, and therefore on Farage.

Second, this cannot just be a tactic. If Brexit and Farage are to blame for the current economic malaise, then the obvious solution is for Starmer and Reeves to row back on Brexit faster and further. Saying that Brexit is a disaster but that we must persist with it is obviously a complete contradiction.

So something will have to be done to improve trade, investment and growth, and that means even closer ties with the EU. Labour must be brave and push for even closer and faster alignment, while talking up the benefits of the single market.

Drag Farage and fellow Brexiteer Kemi Badenoch into it and make British politics a choice between restarting the UK economy or Reform and the Tories’ tax cuts for the rich, paid for by swingeing cuts to public services.

From now on, Labour must therefore bend every policy, every speech, every action to a new set of aims. Like Carthage, Farage must be destroyed. But ultimately, Brexit must be destroyed too.