Starmer is tough on his own party. But he needs to start getting tougher with Reform. The Conservatives are dead in the water. He minces Badenoch every week but she is no challenge at all. It's the narrative of Reform that will hurt Labour, not the next Lettuce.
It's possible that may happen without any need to interfere. Already I'm seeing headlines about Boris Johnson, the Tories and Farage and Reform, with those words close enough together to create an impression in a moron in a hurry.
There's a lot to unpick there, of course. Firstly the fact that despite having St. Kemi "leading" the Tories, Johnson is treated as their pater familias (see what I did there 😀). This looking past St. Kemi cannot be a casual mistake on the part of the political observers. It's a fascinating glimpse into the turbulent waters that are the politics of the posh.
Secondly, it rather assumes that Reform voters who turned away from the Tories are now somehow going to be thrilled that the party they abandoned has now turned up with it's new squeeze. Begging to be taken back and insisting "I've changed now babe, honestly". That rather overlooks the fact that the more tribally minded voter doesn't change allegiances at the drop of a hat (if they did, we wouldn't be in this mess). Although I don't know where a Tory->Reform voter who wanted to avoid voting for Tory+Reform would turn. What happened to the Social Democrats voters when the SDs merged with the Liberals ?
Thirdly it assumes that a Reform-Tory merger would be a meeting of equals. (Hence mentioning Johnson over Badenoch).
Finally, it conveniently forgets that Farage detests the Tories more than I do. Why in the name of all that is Musk would he take his foot of their throats now ? The worse they do, the better Reform does.
The only situation in which a Reform-Tory (yes, I have deliberately put them that way round) would make sense is if the Tories started polling better at the expense of Reform. However dead birds don't fall out of nests. Or fly.