Co-op MPs can help Labour see off Reform threat

After the general election last summer, Nigel Farage made the intentions of his Reform party abundantly clear. "We're coming for Labour," he said. "Be in no doubt about that.

- Catherine Neilan

A year on, Reform is doubtless the government's main threat and No 10 still does not know how to fight their insurgent rise. Within Labour's ranks, the socially conservative "Blue Labour" group believe they have the answer, while leftwing MPs have other ideas, including Zarah Sultana who announced she was quitting the party last week to co-found a new one with former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Another faction claims to have a solution that dates back more than a century: the Cooperative group, which began as a 19th-century movement in which communities organised to take on retailers that were foisting expensive, poor-quality produce on people.

It is effectively a party-within-a-party, thanks to its somewhat unique electoral pact with Labour. And its members believe that empowering communities, giving local people economic power and agency, is the most powerful counter to the rise of Reform and the best shot Labour have of stopping Farage.

The party is nearing the centenary of its alliance with Labour and will do so with 41 “Labour and Coop” MPs the largest number in its history of whom 15 are ministers, including the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds.

Kirsty McNeill, junior minister for Scotland, distills the Cooperative ethos as having “a focus on where people live, in the same way that the union movement is focused on where people work”.