Definition by contrast: how Farage is allowing Starmer to craft a new narrative.

Thirty-eight years later, at the 2025 Labour Party Conference, Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed Arbatov’s words and took aim at the populist wave shaking the foundations of liberal democracies.

Criticising the policies of Reform UK as divisive, inflammatory, and un-British, Starmer pledged:

‘We will fight you with everything we have…because you are an enemy of national renewal.’

The next four years would, Starmer predicted, manifest as ‘a fight for the soul of our country’.

Starmer’s reuse of Cold War language might, on the surface, appear anachronistic, but in reality it reflects the new divide in British politics and the salience of national identity as a live political issue.

Under pressure from insurgent parties on the left and right, shaken by growing factionalism, and critiqued for the absence of a clear political strategy, Starmer’s speech sought to reset the narrative and put his Labour government on the front foot.

The flags of St George and the Union Jack, which this autumn adorned the halls of the main party conferences as well as towns and cities up and down the country, confirm the prominence of cultural identity, and how it is contested, in the politics of modern Britain.

In seeking to portray Reform as a movement hostile to British values, Starmer has, like those Cold War leaders before him, conjured up the looming threat as a vehicle for shaping a new narrative.

For an administration that has struggled to articulate what it stands for and believes in, the portrayal of Nigel Farage as the enemy of modern Britain provides both an opportunity to challenge Reform’s claim that it alone represents the interests of ‘true’ Britons while allowing the government to redefine itself by what it is not.

Indeed, as Starmer argued, the binary choice in British politics breaks down between those advocating ‘the politics of grievance’ and those fighting for a ‘tolerant, decent, respectful Britain’.

While lacking originality, Starmer’s messaging is an attempt to ground his administration in a shared national identity that simultaneously serves to attack the central message of his opponent.

Starmer’s rhetoric is not, however, without risk. In an era of increasing polarisation, disillusionment, and yes even political violence, words do matter. There is a reason why the families of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess have jointly called for a kinder, gentler political discourse.

Yet the incentive for Starmer is also clear. Take control of the narrative, redefine Labour as the party of the flag, and depict Farage as a paper patriot.

You could call it definition by contrast.