Nigel Farage can hardly be accused of not making his intentions clear.

“Reform are parking their tanks on the lawns of the Red Wall,” he told activists and candidates at a working men’s club in County Durham last week.

“Today is the first day I’ve said that, but I absolutely mean it – we’re here, and we’re here to stay.”

With local elections – and the crunch Runcorn by-election – looming on May 1, Farage is turning on the charm as he tries to woo traditional Labour voters to the Reform cause.

Somewhat bizarrely for a man who has made no secret in the past of his admiration for Margaret Thatcher, Farage is now talking about “reindustrialising” the UK, demanding the nationalisation of British Steel and even cosying up to the trade unions.

It is all part of a strategy of winning over those Labour voters in the North and the Midlands who backed Brexit in 2016, supported Boris Johnson’s Tories in 2019 and then, disillusioned, returned to the Labour fold last year.

Millions of votes and dozens of Red Wall seats are up for grabs at the next general election as Farage sets his sights on 10 Downing Street.

Former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth, now chief executive of the Labour Together think-tank, believes Farage is on a hiding to nothing, however.

He told HuffPost UK: “Northerners aren’t daft and will smell Farage’s bullshit from a mile away.

“Farage has spent his whole political career backing Thatcherite economics which devastated industrial communities. He opposes workers’ rights and decent pay rises. It’s clear as day the NHS will never be safe in Reform hands.

“All Reform offers the so-called Red Wall is a route to helping the Tories back into power, leaving working people paying the price.”

A No.10 source, meanwhile, said: “While Nigel Farage was in CountyDurham pretending to care about the working class, [business secretary] Johnny Reynolds was literally at Immingham Port watching the raw materials being unloaded to keep British Steel going.

“And when the PM visited Scunthorpe he got a standing ovation from the workforce, so this idea that we can’t win there now is nonsense.”

Exclusive analysis for HuffPost UK by pollsters Ipsos shows there is potential for Reform to make real inroads into Labour’s heartlands.

In former manufacturing and mining areas in the north of England and south Wales, there is a strong feeling among voters that they have been left behind by successive Tory and Labour governments.

Jobs, policing, public transport and affordable housing are all areas of concern for these voters, while only 24% think public services will improve in the next two to three years.

Gideon Skinner, the firm’s senior director of UK politics, said there is “fertile ground of public discontent for Reform UK to take advantage of, both nationally and in their target areas”.

“In particular, people are attracted to Reform because they see it as a party that will deliver change, and keep their promises,” he said. “They have a leader in Farage who is seen as strong with a lot of personality, who understands the problems facing Britain – especially on getting immigration under control – and who represents traditional British values.”

So far, Labour’s strategy for dealing with the Reform threat has been to highlight Farage’s past comments about moving the NHS to a French-style insurance model and to accuse the party of being “Putin’s poodles”.

Farage’s well-known support for Donald Trump is also seen as another weak spot, something he has appeared to acknowledge by criticising the US president in recent weeks.

Skinner added: “Reform UK still have work to do to correct some of the more negative views about them, which makes these local elections an important test for them.

“Nationally, while they lead on immigration and are neck-and-neck on crime, they trail Labour on other key issues like the NHS, the economy, housing, transport, and education.

“People are worried that a Nigel Farage-led government would be divisive, too close to Donald Trump, and that Reform doesn’t have enough talent to build a competent administration. And overall Keir Starmer still leads Nigel Farage in the public’s mind as best prime minister.”

One Labour Party veteran said: “While our attacks on Farage about the NHS are not the silver bullet, they are cutting through and damaging Reform. It is definitely better than calling them far right and putting our heads in the sand.

“There isn’t much point going after Farage in the way there wasn’t with Boris; he needs to blow himself up, and he will. The Reform attack needs to be nuanced and should develop into a wider critique of their bonkers economic policies, or lack of them to be more precise.”

The local elections on May 1 will tell us more about which of Reform’s main rivals has more to worry about at the moment.

The Tories are defending more than 900 seats and, by Kemi Badenoch’s own admission, are heading for a bad night. Around 600 fewer Labour seats are up for grabs, meaning they won’t sustain as much damage.

Whatever happens, it seems certain that Reform are on course for major gains – as a Survation poll for The Sun appeared to confirm last week.

But an ally of Keir Starmer told HuffPost UK that the political landscape will look very different come the next general election.

“The Tories and Reform are either going to have to kill the other or merge before the next election,” he said. “If Reform kill the Tories, then the choice is whether you want Keir or Farage to be prime minister.

“We win in that scenario because millions of people who cannot stand the thought of Farage in No.10 will vote Labour to stop it happening.

“But if the Tories kill Reform then that is potentially a problem for us because they are more likely to unite that centre-right and right-wing vote.

“Basically, the people who voted Reform last year are never going to vote Labour. We need to attract those who didn’t vote Reform but could drift off to them next time.”

The defining battle of the next four years in British politics could well be whether or not Labour succeeds in preventing Nigel Farage from painting the Red Wall turquoise.