Keir Starmer's performing a tribute act — and he won't like to be compared to this party

Democracy is about genuine choice or it is really about nothing. Little wonder Reform UK is surging in the polls when there is increasingly little to distinguish Britain's two main parties.

Following Sir Keir Starmer's conference speech one must conclude the Tory tribute act only gets him so far.

Of course, Labour would chafe at this comparison - it is, the party would argue, leading a mission-driven Government to deliver better results for the NHS, relieve poverty and make work pay, with a bit more of a role for the state in the running of the economy. If the country must suck up a bit of austerity for that, then so be it. The ends therefore justify the means.

Yet, it isn't hard to imagine a Tory leader saying pretty much the same things. Just as it wouldn't be difficult to imagine a Labour leader botching Brexit and opening the borders to record immigration just as the Tories recently did.

Sure, it is difficult to imagine the Conservatives lifting the VAT exemption on private schools as Labour commits to do. But even the Rwanda plan has been scrapped only for an Albanian one to be floated.

Both parties are fairly open to mass immigration - okay maybe in the Tories' case this has more to do with business needs, but the effect remains the same - plus net zero and relatively high taxation, while the jury is still out on how committed Labour really is in standing up to nimbyism and getting Britain building again.

The vibes may differ, but it isn't much good the Tories rhetorically standing up against "wokeism" when they did little to stop its impact in government. No good either Labour slamming Tory austerity when it comes into office and does much the same.

This can only create an opportunity for Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Untested in power, but untainted by charges of hypocrisy, the anti-mass migration, anti-net zero, pro-business and low tax party is fast distinguishing itself as the unofficial opposition to Sir Keir's Labour.

And Reform UK is really an outlier. The Lib Dems and Greens have largely been squeezed out by the scale of Labour's victory, even as the Lib Dems won a much larger number of seats on July 4, while admittedly both parties stand to gain if Leftist voters sour on Labour.

But if there is little to distinguish the Conservatives from Labour, even less separates Labour from the Lib Dems, beyond maybe some disagreement over how far into bed the UK should get with Europe.

Despite what most politicians believe, voters aren't thick, and can see not only that actions speak louder than words, but sense a bait-and-switch when they see one.

This happened both in the aftermath of the Tories 2019 landslide and feels like it is happening again under Labour. Democracy is about the freedom to choose but that freedom is pointless unless there is actually a genuine choice on offer.

Again, this can only be to the advantage of Nigel Farage, as Reform breathes down Labour's neck in coastal and post-industrial communities. Labour knows it needs to talk tough on migration to guard against Reform, but - like the Tories before them - the voters can smell a phoney a mile off.

In the social media era, voters want authenticity and personality. Donald Trump is very much a creature of this era as is Farage. Neither would have the pulling power they do without the internet. Trump would never have been President in 1996, and Farage would have struggled to cut through before he could go direct-to-consumer on YouTube and TikTok.

Farage may have been mocked when he merely said it was possible he could become PM by 2029. But he's right. It is possible, and the more Labour and the Tories are ideologically indistinguishable the more probable it becomes.

Sir Keir and Labour will get their five years at least, if for no other reason than - even with a new leader - the Tories are unlikely to wipe away the stench of the last 14 years. But today's voters have had enough of anodyne copycat policies.

There is only one winner from this blending of the two main parties, and it isn't the new Prime Minister or whoever gets the poisoned chalice of the Tory leadership. The Honourable Member for Clacton will be gunning for both.