An exiled group within Labour is making a comeback – it could hold the key to repelling Farage | Julian Coman

One poll this month placed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK ahead of Labour and the Conservatives for the first time.

As talk of an electoral pact between Reform and Conservatives begins on the right, the remain/leave divide in British politics is back.

At its most basic, the blue-collar leave vote expressed a desire for rupture with globalised capitalism that had undermined the power and agency of the western working class.

Blue Labour made brief waves as a proto left-conservative’ grouping.

It focused on protecting blue-collar communities from depredations of free-market capitalism.

It sank beneath those waves in a tide of opprobrium when it emerged that such protections would include restrictions on the import of cheaper migrant labour.

Support for Brexit and a communitarian emphasis on “family, faith and flag” scandalised secular liberal progressives.