Labour failed to include any iconic Labour red on its migrant deportation adverts – nor the red Labour rose logo. Instead the party uses the turquoise blue of Reform UK
Labour has launched adverts boasting about deporting migrants using the colour and branding of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.
The party failed to include any iconic Labour red on the adverts – nor the red Labour rose logo. Instead it uses the turquoise blue – and the straight-edged font – of Reform UK.
One Facebook page set up under Reform UK’s colours is the UK Migration Updates, which is run for by the Yorkshire and Humber Labour party. It posts stories and updates celebrating Labour’s deportation figures. The account appears to have become active at the start of January.
And a Reform UK-style attack ad has been posted on a Facebook page called Putting Runcorn First, which is run by Labour North West. It has a banner at the top reading “breaking news”, with a caption saying: “Labour hits five-year high in migrant removals. Labour government removes a record 16,400 illegal migrants since taking power including 2,580 foreign criminals.”
It is not a new tactic for Labour to tailor its campaigning material depending on the region, demographic or subject matter of the ad. Similarly it is not unknown for other parties to use Labour’s signature red in attack ads against the party. But it is the first time the use of Reform UK’s colour as a deliberate choice has been so explicitly noticed, illustrating Labour’s shift in starting to take Mr Farage’s party more seriously.
Such targeted advertising is being rolled out in areas where Reform UK could pose a threat, such as constituencies where the party came in second place to Labour at the general election. It comes after Reform UK topped the UK’s polls for the first time earlier this week. Elsewhere in the country Labour has used targeted ads to challenge the Tories or the Green party.
Some social media users did not look favourably on the tactics. Commenting on a post the UK Migration Updates, Facebook user Nicholas Graham said: “This page is absolutely disgraceful in branding values and message. If the Labour Party really has no higher ambition than to be mistaken for the witless rabble of Reform, you have thrown away whatever moral compass you may once have had.”
Another user Anna Hubbard: “Appalling. You can’t out Reform Reform. Stop pandering.”
A Labour source said: “The Tories and Reform offer nothing but weasel words, while this Labour government gets on with fixing the asylum system, which the Tories broke. We intend to let the public know about our Plan for Change through every available channel. It’s already seen thousands of people with no right to be here removed from Britain and tough new border security measures to reduce small boat crossings.”
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Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, whose regional party launched the UK Migration Updates page, told the Guardian: “I would caution the party against raising such community tensions when we know there are so many asylum seekers who have experienced persecution in their lives. I represent England’s only human rights city, where we uphold the dignity of all.”
Steve Valdez-Symonds, the refugee and migrant rights director at Amnesty International UK, added to the newspaper: “It is seriously worrying that the government seems set on repeating the mistakes of the past – under both Conservative and Labour leadership. For anyone wishing to see that every person’s human dignity is properly respected, and that we have a fair and efficient immigration and asylum system in the UK, public communication strategies such as this only make the situation worse.”