If Labour wants to win the next general election, my dad needs to believe that Ed Miliband isn’t about to make life harder. Right now, that’s not looking good. He thinks Rachel Reeves has put a tax on jobs, that Miliband has made energy more expensive, and that net zero is an expensive fantasy while China, India, and Russia carry on polluting. His frustration is exactly why Reform is growing. It’s not that he’s a Farage fan; he just thinks Labour doesn’t understand what people like him actually worry about.
The problem isn’t the VAT rise, it’s the new employers’ National Insurance hike. Raising it to 15% on salaries above £5,000 isn’t some abstract fiscal policy. It’s a direct cost on hiring, a tax on employment. My dad sees it as Labour punishing people who run businesses, people who create jobs, people who, in his mind, make the economy function. And crucially, he sees Reform hammering home the argument Labour refuses to engage with: that making it more expensive to employ people means fewer jobs, worse pay, and a struggling economy. Labour might argue that the revenue will help fund public services, but my dad, and thousands like him, see it as just another way the state takes and takes while offering little in return.
Then there’s Miliband. My dad’s problem with Labour’s energy policy isn’t that it’s green, It’s that it’s expensive. He’s watching his bills go up while Labour promises wind farms and publicly owned renewables, and he doesn’t see how any of that helps now. He looks at Britain shutting down oil fields while importing energy from abroad and thinks: why not just use what we have? The moral argument about net zero won’t work here. The economic argument might, if Labour actually makes it.
That means framing green energy as a matter of British independence, not British guilt. If Labour pitches Great British Energy as a way to stop depending on volatile global energy markets, lower bills, and guarantee national security, people like my dad might listen. But if the argument remains “this is the right thing to do,” Reform will keep winning votes by saying, “and you’re paying for it.”
Right now, Labour is too focused on why their policies are right, while Reform is winning over people like my dad by explaining why their lives feel worse. The difference is crucial. If Labour can’t show that its tax plans will actually support business, that green energy means lower bills soon, and that the economy won’t grind to a halt under its governance, then people like my dad will look elsewhere. And in this next election, “elsewhere” doesn’t mean the Tories, it means Reform.
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