It was, a Labour official hastily explained, “just one front page”. But for Nigel Farage it was quite a front page: a banner headline in the Sun proclaiming “Britain is broken”, the exact slogan Reform UK is using for May’s local elections.

Inside the paper was not an actual endorsement for Reform, but something that felt as if it could be a precursor to one – details of polling that showed Farage is more trusted than Keir Starmer by “red wall” voters on key issues, with his party level-pegging with Labour for support.

This was the perfect lead-up to Farage’s biggest speech yet in the local election campaign, in which he proclaimed that Reform’s tanks were “on the lawns of the red wall” and directly targeting Labour, with the Conservatives dismissed as finished.

It has been well documented how seriously Starmer’s team, as well as some Labour MPs, treat Reform UK as a threat. But at the same time it is a more complicated picture than Farage would like to present, with arguably as many pitfalls as opportunities ahead for his party.

To begin with, while Farage billed the poll as showing Reform stealing Labour voters, the detailed tables told a different story. Of people who said they would vote Reform on 1 May, just 8% had backed Labour in the 2021 local elections, while nearly 40% voted Conservative.

This discrepancy was pointed out to Farage during a media Q&A after his speech, prompting a slightly peevish response, which avoided the point.

Another slightly grumpy moment came when Farage explicitly took on Labour criticisms of him as untrustworthy on the NHS and friendly to Vladimir Putin, calling the latter “the old Russia conspiracy theory”.

Labour aides believe this shows Farage realises he is vulnerable on both issues. “He can try to airbrush history as much as he likes, but he said those fawning things about Putin on the record, and they have aged very badly,” one said.

Another potential vulnerability, which Labour is not yet explicitly targeting, was highlighted when Farage was asked how a future Reform government would pay for its promised swathe of tax cuts. He responded with some high-grade waffle about new manufacturing jobs and abolishing quangos.

This often difficult transition from insurgent political force to actual ruling party could come into early focus if, as polling suggests, Reform wins control of some councils, almost certainly more from the Tories than Labour.

Expect Labour to keep a close watch on any Reform-run councils, and to pummel them as routinely as it has done when the Greens have done the same.

“Saying you’ll cut diversity and inclusion to save money won’t cut it when you’ve got a council to run,” a Labour official said. “You can trim all the DEI programmes you like, but that won’t fill the potholes or magic up any SEND pupil places.”

Mention of diversity programmes – which Farage did several times – brings in a particularly big imponderable: as he receives more scrutiny, how will voters take to his fairly unfiltered, high-octane UK version of Trumpism?

Farage’s speech on Tuesday gave plenty of examples of this, not least his condemnation of members of the National Education Union as Marxists who are “poisoning the minds of our kids”. Going to war with the biggest teaching union might be popular with Reform members, but many everyday voters know and admire teachers, and might find this a bit quixotic, or insulting, or both.

Similarly, some of Farage’s words on diversity, including that such policies disadvantage “white people with more history in this country” than those from ethnic minorities, will be seen by some as crossing a line from dog whistle to foghorn.

Ultimately, however, Labour realises that this is a much longer game than one newspaper front page or a single set of local elections.

“We will keep punching the bruises over Putin and the NHS, and while it’s probably too early in the cycle now, at some point the issue of fiscal credibility will become more and more important,” the Labour official said.

“But ultimately it’s about us delivering on things that people notice, whether it’s the money in their pocket, GP appointments or potholes.”