Labour has seen a slump in support since Keir Starmer stepped up his personal abuse of Nigel Farage, a survey found yesterday.

The Prime Minister recently launched a series of sharp criticisms against the Reform leader, labeling him the ‘enemy’ on Saturday, denouncing his migration policies as ‘racist’ on Sunday, and using his Labour conference speech to question the opponent’s patriotism.

Sir Keir intensified his stance yesterday, accusing Mr Farage of being responsible for the Channel crisis and even going as far as to refer to the dinghies filled with illegal migrants as ‘Farage boats’.

However, a new poll released yesterday indicated that this strategy might have backfired. The More in Common survey, conducted over the weekend, noted a five-point drop in support for Labour.

Surveying over 2,000 individuals, the poll revealed that Reform’s lead over Labour had increased from three to ten points in a week, with Mr Farage’s party rising two points to 30 percent, while Labour fell five points to 20.

Labour’s strategists are anxiously awaiting public feedback on Sir Keir’s speech. Meanwhile, Mr Farage capitalized on the initial results, stating: ‘Labour has dropped five points in the polls this week. This is what occurs when you offend millions of voters.’

In a series of interviews yesterday, Sir Keir denied he was trying to incite violence against Mr Farage. 

He also argued that the Reform leader should be held responsible for the small boats crisis, as his successful campaign for the UK to leave the EU terminated a long-standing returns agreement with continental countries.

Labour has seen a slump in support since Keir Starmer stepped up his personal abuse of Nigel Farage, according to a survey 

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reacts to the speech by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour Party conference, during a photocall at the Reform UK headquarters in Westminster, London. Picture date: Tuesday September 30, 2025

The PM told GB News: ‘I would gently point out to Nigel Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU and he told the country it would make no difference if we left. He was wrong about that. These are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the Channel.’

But experts yesterday said the so-called Dublin Convention, which governed returns to the EU, had been of very limited use.

Tony Smith, former head of UK Border Force, said ‘hardly any’ migrants had ever been returned to France while Britain was in the EU due to bureaucratic hurdles.Mr Smith, who was in charge of trying to organise returns to the EU, called the PM’s claim ‘nonsense’, saying the Dublin agreement was ‘not that successful at all’. He added: ‘I don’t know who is advising the Prime Minister but whoever it is, they have not done their homework. They are clearly putting out false messaging trying to deflect from the problem they’ve got.’

A Reform source pointed out Mr Farage was the first senior politician to bring the crisis to public attention.

In the summer of 2020 he highlighted the arrival of dinghies on Kent beaches and became the first to reveal the role of the French navy in escorting migrant boats across the Channel. The source called Sir Keir’s comments ‘totally dishonest’.

Mr Farage accused the PM of ‘descending into the gutter’ after he used his keynote speech to Labour’s annual conference to launch personal attacks on the Reform leader. 

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was forced to withdraw a poisonous claim that Mr Farage ‘flirted’ with the Hitler Youth after he admitted he had no evidence for it.

Sir Keir yesterday denied that his rhetoric risked putting a target on Mr Farage’s back.

Asked if there was a risk his comments could incite attacks on Reform activists, he told Times Radio: ‘No it’s not’. He said it was right to point out ‘the toxic division and divide’ a Reform government would cause.

Meanwhile, Reform MP Danny Kruger accused the PM of ‘playing with fire’. 

‘The consequence of what this Prime Minister and David Lammy and others have done could well be to cause political trouble of this very serious nature including physical violence,’ he said. 

‘I think he is playing with fire by using this total slur. The worst thing you can say about someone these days is to call them racist or to call them a Nazi and that is what the Labour Party has done to us this week.’