Watching the Starmer administration thrash about as it attempts to put Reform “back in their box” has been an increasingly unedifying experience over the past few weeks. And yes, it’s probably time to treat them like any other opponent now that they’re in a position of power in a number of county councils, but apeing them on immigration policy isn’t exactly doing that, is it?

I am not naive, however. Many Reform voters (in fairness, most voters) pay little attention to the day to day of modern politics. They don’t care who runs local services unless things go wrong, have little understanding of, or care about, the difficulties of local government finance. They just know that their council tax bills goes up every year, and the services get worse. And, if nobody else is active in their neighbourhood, why not vote Reform? It couldn’t get worse, surely?

Obviously, it can though. Letting a bunch of people who have little knowledge of how local government really works and whose prejudices are unsupported by the facts risks either a series of poor decisions or effective officer control. The former leads to ever more diminishing services, the latter to a loss of democratic oversight and accountability. But there will always be someone else to blame, and that will be what some voters will be happy to accept.

The solution? Easy, really, just get something done that visibly makes something better, preferably something that currently annoys a lot of people. For, if people are happier with the quality of key public services, they’re less likely to want to thrash out. But also, don’t promise the undeliverable. For example, don’t tell voters that you’re going to restrict the number of visas for care workers unless you’ve worked out how you’re going to replace them. And solving one problem by creating a series of new ones is hardly going to help either – university financing comes to mind.

What’s probably as distressing though, is the seeming willingness to punish the vulnerable – benefit claimants, the LGBT+ community, migrant communities. That wasn’t what voters who came together to drive the Conservatives out of government were voting for, and it’s demonstrated by the collapse of the Labour vote on 1 May and in by-elections before and since.

For whilst the Morgan MacSweeney method might have worked in Barking and Dagenham against the BNP, voters there didn’t have a whole lot of options. Nationally, they now do. Liberal Democrats, Greens, Nationalists – they’re all credible alternatives depending on where you are and how active progressive parties are locally. Let that be a warning, Keir…

Meanwhile, here at Liberal Democrat Voice, we’ll be bringing you the rest of the weekend’s press releases and, eventually, today’s, whilst Chris Bowers will be offering a different perspective on how liberals should respond to the immigration debate. I’m hoping that we’ll have something else to stimulate, entertain or inform later in the day too.

I’m trying to use our BlueSky account more effectively – bear in mind that it doesn’t entirely come naturally to me – but it would help us reach further if you could like our posts and, if you think a particular post might benefit from a wider audience, please repost.

Finally, I’ll be out of commission this evening, as I’ll be chairing Creeting St Peter’s Annual Parish and Annual Parish Council Meetings. Please bear with me accordingly..,

And with that, let Liberal Democrat Voice’s day start in earnest…

* Mark Valladares is Liberal Democrat Voice’s Monday Editor.