“Will you be standing up for British workers or voting against strengthening their rights?” That’s a question posed to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in a letter from the “red wall” group of Labour MPs. It’s part of a visible new determination on the part of the governing party to trip up Farage and stymie his rising polling numbers. It may work. But it’s far from clear that it will.

The Labour party clearly believes Reform has a vulnerability. Its socially conservative views – most notably on immigration and Brexit – appeal to a broad cross-party coalition of pro-free market, economically rightwing Tories and poorer, pro-redistribution former Labour voters. However, when it comes to economic policy, the interests of the two groups diverge quite sharply. If the electoral battleground in 2029 is the detail of economic policy, that will matter.

The data bears this out to some extent. Reform is a victim of its own success. About 80% of its 2024 voters voted Tory in 2019. Yet those were Boris Johnson’s Tories, a collection of disenchanted voters who were as likely to have migrated to the Tories from Labour as from the Brexit party. The very diversity of this coalition means its members have different views on economic policy. Data from the British Election Study shows that while many 2024 Reform voters share the same authoritarian-leaning social values, their economic views are less cohesive: 42% of them oppose redistributive policies, while 33% favour them.

In terms of actual party policy, Reform has to date leaned towards the small-state crowd rather than former Labour voters, whose economic preferences might be more interventionist. Behind the cover of its “contract” with the British people lay proposed tax cuts (estimated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to amount to £90bn), a cut in the rate of corporation tax of 10%, cuts to government departments, tax relief for users of private healthcare, reforms to the benefits system and the scrapping of employment protections.

Not, of course, that these mattered much at the last election. Just 2% of Reform voters said they voted for the party because of its tax policy versus 34% who said they did because of the party’s policies on immigration. The question is whether this situation is sustainable.

There is of course always the possibility that Reform might adapt. One of the clearest contrasts between them and populist rightwing parties in continental Europe is that many of the latter have adopted relatively leftwing positions on the economy. Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom (PVV) successfully linked migration to housebuilding and social housing shortages and economic insecurity. The AfD has been vocal in support for the minimum wage and pension protections for poorer households. Marine Le Pen has become much more interventionist in recent years, speaking in favour of social assistance for the poorest people.

And there is a precedent for Farage to co-opt Labour policies if it helps his party in the polls. In the run-up to the 2015 general election, Ukip drifted leftwards as it began to pick up votes from disaffected former Labour voters. The party’s manifesto opposed the privatisation of Royal Mail and favoured limiting zero-hours contracts, abolishing bedroom tax and establishing progressive taxation. One might assume from this that Farage is capable of a degree of ideological flexibility.

And then there is the question as to whether Reform’s policies matter. In harvesting what was in effect a “none of the above” vote, the party benefited from the anti-incumbency wave that was a feature of so many elections in 2024. Many of those who cast their ballot for Reform are united not just by their socially conservative views but also by their apathy towards Westminster politics and scepticism of politicians’ abilities to make their lives better.

Nine months after the general election, these voters are already doubtful of the Labour government’s capabilities – 2024 Reform voters are by far the most likely of any party to say they think Labour is out of ideas and has no competent politicians.

And so the government and “red wall” MPs can bang on all they like about the way Farage and co voted on the employment rights bill. But if the government fails to deliver on its commitments to improve living standards and public services, and cut net migration, why would disaffected voters (who Reform is so good at attracting) listen to them?

The more Reform can encourage people to tick the “none of the above” box, the less it matters what its actual policies are.