Lucy Powell: Labour must grab ‘political microphone’ back from Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage “has been allowed to hog the political microphone all summer”, Lucy Powell has warned as she urged Labour activists and leaders to “grab it back”.

The Labour deputy leadership hopeful, who served in Sir Keir Starmer’s initial Cabinet, said her party had “sometimes struggled” to get attention during its first year in Government.

In a pitch to Labour members, published in The Guardian, Ms Powell described taking on Mr Farage’s Reform UK party as “the battle of our political age” and continued: “But we shouldn’t end up arguing on their terms, using their language.

“We need to wrest back control of the political megaphone that Farage brandishes and use it to amplify a Labour message based on the values we cherish – and that the British people share.

“As Labour’s deputy leader, I would take the fight to Farage in a way that would energise our movement and expose the mendacity his populist rhetoric disguises.”

Ms Powell is courting support from Labour backers in a bid to become its next deputy leader, after Angela Rayner resigned over her tax affairs.

But she failed to win support from two of the country’s largest trade unions on Thursday, Unison and the GMB, who threw their weight behind her rival, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.

“Bridget will be a strong, persuasive and passionate voice at the top of the party to help steer the change that people voted for,” Unison’s Labour Link committee chairwoman Linda Hobson said.

But Ms Powell did receive a nomination from the Fire Brigades Union executive council, which its general secretary Steve Wright said was “to send a clear message that the leadership must change direction”.

The Manchester Central MP made her pitch just days before party delegates and activists gather in Liverpool for their annual conference, which begins at the weekend.

“Politics today is about winning the fight for both authenticity and attention,” Ms Powell wrote.

“Let’s be honest: as Labour in Government, we’ve sometimes struggled with both.

“We’ve found it hard to tell the real story about what is wrong with Britain and how we are going to fix it.”

Ms Powell, who was sacked as Commons leader earlier this month, referred to a fresh Reform UK pledge to abolish indefinite leave to remain.

Reform’s policy chief Zia Yusuf admitted the move to have migrants renew their visa every five years to stay in the UK could “lead to hundreds of thousands of people having to apply and ultimately losing their settled status in the UK, which will be done on a staggered and orderly basis to allow businesses to train British workers to replace them”.

Ms Powell described the announcement as being “the most outrageous” one during her lifetime, “raising the prospect of US-style immigration raids on homes and workplaces”.

She added it was a “disgraceful scheme cooked up by a man who is the love child of Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell” and continued: “No amount of posing with pint in hand and fag in mouth can mask the malice, division and hatred that drives it.”

Ms Powell said Labour’s achievements, including raising the minimum wage and starting a programme of gradually returning train operating companies into public ownership, must become part of a “narrative” which explains how the Government is “rewiring the country”, but warned there “is an urgent need to control” migration.

She ended her plea by writing: “Farage has been allowed to hog the political microphone all summer.

“We need to grab it back and start shouting about the Labour principles that drive us.

“They are values the whole country shares.”

Mr Farage earlier this week described one of his opponents as being “obsessed” with him.

The Reform UK leader wrote on X that he watched Sir Ed Davey speak during the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth.

“He is obsessed with me,” Mr Farage said.

“I am happy to pay for a psychiatrist.”

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed asked his party’s activists to “imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become”.

He added: “Where gun laws are rolled back, so schools have to teach our children what to do in case of a mass shooting.”

Sir Ed mentioned Mr Farage by name 30 times in his speech.