Irish leader’s gaffe blows election wide open and leaves Starmer facing Brexit reset setback

Labour could be left reeling by result after Simon Harris’s party slumps in polls following gaffe compared to Gordon Brown’s 2010 ‘bigoted woman’ comments

Sir Keir Starmer risks a blow to his pledge to reset relations with the European Union after Brexit amid fears one of his key allies could be ousted in Friday’s elections in Ireland.

The Labour prime minister has built a strong personal rapport with the Irish leader Simon Harris since his election in July.

But a new poll for The Irish Times suggests Mr Harris’s Fine Gael party has slumped from first to third place, after a gaffe which has been compared to Gordon Brown’s 2010 “bigoted woman” comments.

Mr Harris walked away from disability care worker Charlotte Fallon when she tried to ask him about low pay in her job sector. She responded: “Keep shaking hands and pretending you’re a good man” in an exchange that has since racked up millions of views online.

At the end of the last Labour government, the then prime minister Mr Brown’s election campaign was thrown into turmoil after he was caught on a live mic calling a Labour supporter a “bigoted woman”.

Simon Harris and Keir Starmer swap personalised jerseys as the respective prime ministers of Ireland and Britain meet in Dublin before September’s football international between Ireland and England (PA Wire)

The poll puts Fine Gael on 19 per cent, far below the 25 per cent it polled when the election was called a fortnight ago.

The centre-right party now trails its main coalition partner, fellow centre-right party Fianna Fail, on 21 per cent and Sinn Fein on 20 per cent.

The UK believes Ireland will play a pivotal role in Sir Keir’s plan for a reset in relations with the European Union.

Setting out the scale of his ambition earlier this year, he promised to fix Britain’s damaged relations with the bloc for the benefit of “generations to come”.

Just weeks later, insiders told The Independent the Irish were “very influential” to the project.

Mr Harris also signalled his willingness to develop a closer relationship with the UK in the wake of Labour’s landslide election victory, and he and Sir Keir have built up a significant personal relationship since Labour’s election victory.

Mr Harris gave Sir Keir’s plans a boost at a conference at Blenheim Palace when he described the election of the new Labour government as a potential “game-changer”.

Starmer and German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is widely expected to lose a general election early next year (Nadja Wohlleben/PA Wire)

After a private discussion between the two men at the prime minister’s private residence, Chequers, he went on to describe the reset as “real” and “meaningful”.

The Independent has been told he reiterated that sentiment in person to Sir Keir later.

At Chequers, the Irish PM also gave Sir Keir a new Donegal Gaelic football shirt, after he was pictured playing football in one bought on his honeymoon in Ireland nearly two decades ago.

Mr Harris could be the second key ally Sir Keir loses this winter.

He has also developed a close working relationship with the German chancellor Olaf Sholz, who is widely expected to lose a general election scheduled for early next year.