Labour’s chances of winning the next election are looking gloomier than the Storm Amy clouds covering the UK this weekend.
Reform UK continue to dominate the polls – with some giving them as much as a 16-point lead over Labour 34 per cent – and pick up wins in council by-elections. This week, dissatisfaction with Keir Starmer reached record levels and the sense of drift is starting to feel terminal, despite Labour’s best efforts to fight back at their party conference.
Part of the problem? The economy. Growth is anaemic, the fiscal outlook is grim, and the Chancellor is already being warned she may have to raise taxes just to stay within her own spending rules. That’s a move that would test the patience of voters already squeezed to breaking point. As Sky News put it, she’s staring down an “impossible trilemma”: fund public services, cut taxes, and keep debt falling – pick two, if you’re lucky.
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And lurking in the background like a bad hangover is Brexit. Independent estimates now suggest that leaving the EU has cost the UK around £40 billion in lost public revenues – money that could have funded the NHS, cut taxes, or, frankly, kept the lights on in struggling town halls. It’s the slow bleed that no one in Westminster really wants to talk about, especially not the Labour leadership.
But maybe they should.
Back in 2015, David Cameron threw the dice with a referendum pledge and, love or loathe the outcome, it helped secure him a majority. Starmer could do something similar now – except the public mood has shifted. Only 29 per cent of Britons would back Brexit if the vote were held again, according to the latest polling. The tables have turned.
A second referendum on EU membership would be audacious, risky, and guaranteed to dominate the campaign. It would also give Labour something it desperately lacks: a defining, future-shaping offer. For wavering Remain voters, younger generations, and businesses battered by red tape and export losses, it could be the rallying cry they’ve been waiting for.
Yes, it would ignite a political firestorm. Yes, Reform and the Conservatives would howl betrayal. But right now, Labour is in danger of going into an election armed with nothing but managerial competence and a vague sense of “not being the other lot.” That’s not enough when the polls are this bad.
If Starmer wants to change the conversation – to turn the contest on its head – the answer might be staring him in the face. Ask the country the question again.