What the papers say: Labour’s Ukip nightmare

After being made Ukip leader yesterday, Paul Nuttall wasted no time in making it clear who he had in his sights: the Labour party. Nuttall said he wanted Ukip to ‘replace Labour’ within five years. And in its editorial, the Times says this threat spells a ‘nightmare’ scenario for Labour. The paper says that while ‘healing’ Ukip’s own ‘wounds’ won’t be easy following a fractious and divisive few months, ‘the rewards could be historic’; it says that a two per cent swing towards Ukip would lose Labour 13 seats, while Labour ‘would lose 19 more’ seats if one in five Labour voters sided with Nuttall’s party. But can Ukip pull it off? The party’s big challenge, the Times says, is to appeal to Brexit backers from the Tories, who are worried Theresa May might ‘compromise on free movement’, and Labour voters ‘baffled by Mr Corbyn’s indifference to immigration’. But if Nuttall ‘succeeds, for better or worse, he will lead a new force in British politics,’ the paper concludes.