Politicians from the five main parties in England have clashed over local services, Donald Trump and protest votes as polls suggested disillusionment could be a key factor in elections on Thursday.
Shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake urged the public not to use their ballot to express dissatisfaction, while Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the Conservatives “really are the same” as Reform UK in a heated TV debate.
Labour and the Tories are seeking to defend seats from Reform amid opinion poll momentum for Nigel Farage’s party ahead of the first big electoral test of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership and Kemi Badenoch’s opposition leadership.
In a debate on Channel 4 News on Tuesday night with representatives from the five main parties, Mr Reed attacked Reform London Assembly member Alex Wilson over his history as a Tory party member.
“He must believe in what the Conservatives believe, or he wouldn’t have been doing that,” he said.
“I think the reason that trust in (politics) is at a low ebb is because people have not had a pay rise for a decade… National Health Service waiting lists got to record highs, sewage is polluting all of our rivers and lakes and seas… this Government is focused on sorting those problems out.”
He added: “People have got a choice, they can vote for that change or they can vote to go back to where we were before.”
Mr Hollinrake suggested the party had made mistakes in government, including in its approach to border control, but said “we will tackle migration properly this time” and insisted Reform was not “the solution”.
“I think we can bring forward the solutions and then we won’t need Reform to try and have that situation where people think ‘vote for none of the above’, which is effectively what you do when when you’re voting for Reform,” he said.
“When you’re casting your vote on Thursday, do not use that vote to protest. Use it to elect good people.”
Mr Wilson insisted he was “not particularly typical of a lot of our candidates” when challenged over his history as a Tory member for more than 20 years and his previous experience as a councillor.
“Absolutely we have a choice, and we have a choice between a political class that has taken your vote for granted for far too long and new parties.”
He added: “I’m not particularly typical of a lot of our candidates, a lot of our candidates are putting their head above the parapet.
“They’re standing for common sense in the local community for the first time because they’re so fed up with how the political system has treated them till now.”
Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay said “moving away from the two big parties is not about a protest vote” and that his party offered a positive vision for the future.
“The question is, do people go down a Reform route, which if you look at the detail is only really about supporting the very richest in society, or do you come behind a hopeful vision of the future, which the Greens are offering, which is about a safe environment, but about tackling inequality, rebuilding our public services and the affordable housing that we need?” he said.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said the UK’s institutions are not built for the country’s current political make-up, arguing that the first-past-the-post voting system is “broken”.
Ms Cooper said: “We have a lot of people who haven’t forgiven the Conservatives for the state they left the country in and they’re deeply disappointed with some of the decisions… that the Labour Government has taken, and people I think are crying out for change.”
Labour and the Tories sparred over how to approach US-UK relations after Mr Trump’s decision to impose sweeping import taxes on goods entering America.
“The Trump storm will pass, but in the meantime, we’ve got to batten down the hatches,” Mr Hollinrake said.
“It’s in everybody’s interest to trade fairly and freely across the developed world, that’s in everybody’s interest and President Trump’s interest… of course we should look for a free trade agreement at the same time with President Trump… if you strike a customs deal with the European Union, you completely lock yourself out of a trade deal with the US.”
Mr Reed responded: “You can’t just wish President Trump away, he is there and we’re going to have to negotiate with him. We will do that in the national interest.”
Mr Wilson said Mr Farage is a “critical friend” of the US president as he faced questions about how closely the Reform party leader would align himself with Mr Trump if he were in Number 10.
“If Nigel Farage was prime minister we’d have a much stronger chance of getting the deal that we need because he has that relationship, he’s a critical friend, but he’s a friend nonetheless, but he’s critical nonetheless,” he said.
Mr Reed argued that partnerships with both Washington and Brussels, both of which the Labour Government is seeking to secure, are needed to put Britain’s economy in the strongest possible position.
“It would be very hard to imagine Nigel Farage doing a good trade deal with the European Union,” the minister said.
Mr Reed said voting for Labour councillors would help local authorities “start focusing on the problems that people are bothered about”, including fly-tipping and “more potholes on the road in England than there are craters on the moon”.
Defending the party’s record funding local services in government, he said fly-tippers would be forced to join “clean-up squads” as a deterrent to those considering dumping rubbish and a punishment for those who have.
Mr Ramsay questioned why he was “getting headteachers in my constituency saying that they’re going to have to look at whether they might need to make redundancies” if Labour was protecting services.
It came as Luke Tryl, executive director at More in Common, which has been surveying the public across areas where ballots will be held this week, told reporters that “disillusionment” is a “primary driver”.
He said: “I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that the groups that we did over the past week are some of the most disillusioned, disappointed, disaffected that we’ve run.
“There was a real sense that people keep demanding change from politics and they’re not getting that change, and that they are as a result not just thinking things are bad, but starting to lose faith in the inability of the system to change things.”
Local and mayoral contests can reflect attitudes towards neighbourhood concerns such as potholes and bin collections, but they can also indicate where parties stand nationally.
Voters will go to the polls in 23 council areas across England and six mayoral contests across devolved regions on Thursday.
A by-election in former Labour MP Mike Amesbury’s vacated seat of Runcorn and Helsby will also take place, and is expected to be closely fought by Labour and Reform.
Polling released on Tuesday indicated Reform was leading nationally, with YouGov putting Mr Farage’s party at 26%, Labour at 23% and the Conservatives at 20%.
