If the battle for Britain becomes Starmer v Farage, then how should Labour fight it?

A couple of months after the 2024 general election, I asked Morgan McSweeney, Labour's chief strategist, whether he thought the Conservatives or Reform would be his party's primary opponent at the next national contest. He gave what I thought was a candid and reasonable response, because it was the one I would have given myself at the time. He replied that he wasn't yet sure of the answer.

- Andrew Rawnsley

Now he is. At Sir Keir Starmer's recent encounter with morose Labour MPs, an occasion so crowded that it required a spillover room with a video link to accommodate all the attendees, the prime minister told them that "the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power."

The first thing to interrogate about this assertion is whether it is true. In terms of parliament, it isn't. Reform has just a handful of MPs, a contingent that could fit in a small minibus. Even in their hollowed out state, the Conservatives have more than 100.

Kemi Badenoch gets the automatic right to be first to respond to every prime ministerial statement and to put six questions to him every week when the Commons is sitting. Nigel Farage gets to intervene only if he catches the speaker's eye. He wasn't even present for the statement on the biggest reset with the EU since the Brexit referendum because the Reform leader had bunked off for a holiday in Clacton-on-Sea ... no, sorry, make that the south of France.

The case for saying that Reform is shouldering aside the Tories to become the main opposition is based on opinion polls and its advances in the May Day elections. The latest poll of polls has Reform ahead on 30 points, more than double its vote share last July. Labour has wilted to a miserable 22. The Tories, the outfit that used to boast of being the world's most successful party, have shrivelled to a dire third, at 17. One poll published in the past few days has the Conservatives slithering down into fourth place, behind the perky Lib Dems.