REVEALED: Keir Starmer's 'big gamble' to block Nigel Farage’s march to No10 as Reform ransacks Labour's Red Wall

Addressing anxious Labour MPs after his controversial “island of strangers” migration speech, the Prime Minister admitted: “The Conservatives are not our principle opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”

He added: “We will take the fight to him. We will fight him as Labour.”

Labour insiders have suggested that the language intends to shore up left-leaning anti-Farage support at a time when disaffected voters have switched to both the Liberal Democrats and Green Party.

A Labour campaign veteran told GB News: “Framing the next election as Labour vs Reform could be a stroke of McSweeney's strategic genius.

"Farage might be soaking up headlines, but the moment voters are asked to imagine him actually running the country, the mood shifts, fast.

“He’s still political Marmite: entertaining in small doses, but not someone most voters want running the kitchen.

"Starmer, by contrast, may not thrill, but he’s increasingly seen as the bloke the working men’s clubs would trust to lock up after last orders.”

GB News also understands that Labour strategists were hoping a “stop Farage” coalition could have prevented Reform’s narrow six-vote victory in Runcorn.

“It’s a big gamble to hope enough people turn out to stop Farage as it wasn’t large enough in Runcorn and it wasn’t enough to stop Brexit either,” a Red Wall Labour source said.

Starmer’s pivot to embracing the rise of Reform came little over a fortnight after a turquoise tidal wave swept across England in the 2025 Local Elections.

Despite making most of its gains at the expense of the Tories, major scalps in Durham, Doncaster and Hull & East Yorkshire ensured Starmer was dealt a bloody nose by voters across the Red Wall.

And opinion polls are now suggesting that Reform is opening up enormous double-digit leads over Labour - increasing Farage’s chances of becoming Britain’s next Prime Minister.

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A closer look at the polls paints stark warning signs for Starmer’s shallow electoral coalition.

YouGov’s latest survey found that just 60 per cent of 2024 Labour voters now say they will still vote for Starmer, with 15 per cent switching to Reform, 12 per cent siding with the Liberal Democrats and nine per cent now backing the Green Party.

However, YouGov also found Farage that failed to defeat any of his leadership rivals in head-to-head showdowns.

Farage trailed Starmer by 15-points, with the Clacton MP only pipping the Prime Minister among 2024 Tory voters by 11 per cent while claiming single-digit support with Liberal Democrats and Green supporters.

And Starmer’s decision to pin Farage as his main rival at the next General Election could claw back Liberal Democrat and Green switchers, a polling guru has argued.

JL Partners co-founder James Johnson told GB News: “If Starmer wants to paint the contest as Starmer versus Farage then actually voters on the left - Greens and Lib Dems - are more likely to vote Labour tactically because they’re more scared of Farage than they are of Kemi Badenoch.

"When you ask who is the best PM between Starmer and Badenoch, Starmer is on a lower score than when it’s Starmer versus Farage.”

He added: “Making it a binary support between the two actually shores up some of their support on the left. That matters everywhere.

"Regardless of whether it's Labour campaigning in Grimsby or Labour campaigning in Battersea, it helps Labour against the Tories, as well as against Farage.

"That is a dynamic that won’t hurt Labour. It could squeeze the Tories out. The longer the right is split between the two, the better it is for Starmer.”

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However, a friend of Farage remains convinced Labour’s decision to take aim at the Reform UK’s leader upbringing remains “desperate”.

“The fact is, everybody knows what Farage is like, and they just don’t care,” Farage’s pal told GB News. “Nobody knows who Starmer is, which is far more worrying.”

Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf also dismissed YouGov’s head-to-head polling, labelling the methodology as “moronic” due to its limited implications for “electoral outcomes”.

He added: “More Britons have a positive view of Nigel than any other leader, and Reform has a dominant lead in national polls.”

The decision to go after Farage also comes as Labour MPs in the Red Wall become increasingly jittery about the prospect of being ousted by Reform UK.

Despite winning just five seats in the 2024 General Election - all at the expense of the Tories - Reform finished second in another 98 seats, with 89 being won by Labour.

Labour bigwigs could also face the chop based on current opinion polls - with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper looking particularly vulnerable.

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Farage is going further than just challenging Labour electorally in the Red Wall by parking his populist party’s policy tanks onto Labour’s lawns.

Axing his previous association with Thatcherism, Farage is pledging to completely reverse Starmer’s decision to slash Winter Fuel Payments, nationalise British Steel and scrap the two-child benefit cap.

Just days after the Prime Minister appeared to edge closer to a TV debate with Farage, the Reform UK leader also laid down the gauntlet by inviting the Prime Minister to join him in a working men’s club for a head-to-head showdown.

Speaking at a press conference in London, Farage labelled Starmer "unpatriotic" and argued the Prime Minister is “absolutely terrified” of his People’s Army.

“They’ve decided they’ll turn their guns on me,” Farage explained. “At every PMQs now, we see an obscure backbench Labour MP get up and ask a question: ‘Is it true that the Honourable Member for Clacton is a complete rotter?’

“To which, the PM says: 'Well, of course, he supports Putin, wants to abolish the NHS.’ I have to sit there and I’ve got no means of actually answering back or fighting back at all.”

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The Reform UK leader also dismissed any challenge posed by the Tories.

He claimed it was “completely irrelevant” if either Robert Jenrick or Boris Johnson replaced Kemi Badenoch as Leader of the Opposition, adding: “They’ve had a good 200 years but it is now finished.”

However, an ally of Farage admitted: “They’re not finished yet but it’s looking that way.”

A Red Wall Labour source also warned Starmer that he will need to prove he is making a material difference to voters if he wants to see off Farage.

“The best hope for Labour is the patience of policy bearing fruit just before the election,” they said.

However, Labour instead decided to attack Farage based on his background, particularly his enrollment at the fee-paying public school, Dulwich College.

The same attacks were deployed against Farage as Ukip rose in the polls in the early 2010s.

And Starmer’s decided to add a fourth pillar to his NHS, Ukraine, workers’ rights attack: the economy.

The Prime Minister headed up to the North West of England after a new Merlin Strategy poll showed his 17 per cent Red Wall lead in the General Election has now become a seven-point advantage for Reform.

Taking aim at Farage’s economic agenda, Starmer said: “In opposition, we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill. We were right, and we were elected to fix that mess.

"Now in Government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy – this time from Nigel Farage.

“Farage is making the exact same bet Liz Truss did, that you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it.

Hitting back at Starmer, Farage told The Sun: "In the last 24 hours I have been subjected to political attacks by everybody from Keir Starmer to John Swinney because Reform UK are winning.

"The Prime Minister is now resorting to dirty tricks borrowed from the 2016 referendum campaign. This is Project Fear 2.0."

Yusuf also claimed Starmer's attacks against Farage showed the Prime Minister is "panicking".

He said: "His awful Government is trailing Reform by a staggering eight-points in the latest YouGov poll.

"We talk about economic credibility, this Government, in their manifesto last June, promised £10bn in increased spending.

"In their actual Budget, their first Budget, three months later, they increased spending by £60bn and on their magic money tree found an extra another £30bn to give away sovereign territory in the form of the Chagos Islands."