Not so long ago, commentators, myself included, were debating the possible demise of Ukip. With the triumph of its signature cause – Brexit – it seemed redundant. Nigel Farage had resigned; the frontrunner to replace him, Steven Woolfe, was hospitalised after a fracas; and the eventual successor, Diane James, lasted 18 days at the top. The party’s bankroller, Arron Banks, threatened to pull his backing. Farce? Meltdown? Apparently so, but maybe not. For Ukip is a force that caters for a political demand. There is a need that sustains even this crisis-ridden husk.

Like almost all of its European sister parties, Labour faces multiple existential crises, and Ukip is one of them. Not because Paul Nuttall has a northern accent and will bring flat-capped northerners flocking into the fold, presumably with their whippets in tow, as some patronising commentary implies. It is because Ukip is drawing strength from a crisis all elements of Labour must take responsibility for.

Across Britain, Labour is on life support. In that discomfiting political situation, the party’s instinct is to fall back on the NHS. That’s understandable. The NHS is Labour’s crowning glory, showcasing the party’s founding principles of people before profit. Nuttall is on record calling for the dismantling of the NHS. “I would argue that the very existence of the NHS stifles competition,” he wrote in a blog congratulating Tory privatisation policies that, in a display of cowardice, he later deleted. “As long as the NHS is the sacred cow of British politics, the longer the British people will suffer with a second-rate health service. I believe that the NHS is a monolithic hangover from days gone by,” he declared in 2011, demanding “more free market is introduced into the health service”. He is thus an easy target.

Much of the left simply waits for a sea change in people’s worldview that never comes

The problem is the well-established pattern of Labour being ahead in the polls on the NHS, often substantially, and still losing elections. In the EU referendum, even John Major warned that the NHS would be “about as safe” with the rightwing Brexiteers “as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python”. Leave still won, cynically minimising its trust deficit on the issue by deceitfully pledging £350m a week extra for the NHS.

What Labour first needs to understand is which of its voters are defecting to Ukip. Ian Warren, the pollster who conducts focus groups of Labour-to-Ukip defectors, identifies two groups. One is blue-collar working households; relatively politically engaged; over 40; white; non-graduates; and from the Midlands, northern England or Wales. They are socially conservative on defence, social security and immigration.

The other group includes deprived, disaffected voters from similar communities. They’re typically under 40; either private renters or council tenants; often in insecure work; they are less likely to vote unless motivated to do so. Neither would ever vote Tory. Like Corbynistas, they generally prefer pre-Blair Labour to what happened next; but their social conservatism distinguishes them.

Identity trumps leftwing economic populism. “The only reason they’re staying with us is some sense of tribal loyalty which is being eroded with every passing day,” Warren says. Both groups feel the left treats them with contempt. “They see Labour as being cosmopolitan and distant from them, with nothing to say to their concerns, and looking down at them,” pollster James Morris says.

This sense of being demonised by a liberal metropolitan elite – a resentment the rightwing populism of our time exploits – is widespread. “They’re very sensitive that people like us will dismiss them,” says academic Rob Ford. “They don’t have status and standing with people they want to get a hearing from, and it angers them.”

To varying degrees, the left risks dismissing most working-class Britons as tabloid-brainwashed sheep or robots. Many of these natural Labour voters feel, however justly, that their traditional party now holds them in contempt, sneers at their concerns and values, and lives in a parallel universe.

If the left wants to convince them on key issues – on immigration for example – it at least needs to understand where people currently are. The desire to reduce immigration is not at the same level across British society. But there is a majority who want to reduce immigration in every group of British society.

A poll last year showed that, overall, 75% of Britons thought immigration was too high, compared with 18% who thought it was about right and 2% too low; 85% of over-60s thought it was too high, compared with 56% of 18 to 24s. Among Britons classified as middle-class it was 69%; among those labelled working-class, 81%. In multicultural London, it was 66%; in Scotland, 69%.

Among Liberal Democrat voters, 60%; among Labour voters, 65%. According to the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey, 82% of those with migrant heritage whose parents were born in Britain wanted immigration reduced; and so did 60% of first- and second-generation migrants. Among remain voters, 56% want a cap on European migrants.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall is 'game changer' for Labour, says Frank Field Read more

Much of the left simply waits for a transformation in their worldview that never comes. Tell enough facts, goes the approach, and they’ll change their minds. Blame the media. Talk about the NHS. Rinse and repeat. I know: I’ve done it myself. It doesn’t work.

Partly it’s about language. The populist right aims for the heart; the left often thinks it’s about the head. Warren calls for “industrial, blunt, honest language”, rather than the “clever, academic language” favoured by the left. Labour needs big public meetings on immigration on council estates at which local residents can offload their anger and at least feel listened to, he believes.

Labour has demanded a properly resourced Migrant Impact Fund, to help communities experiencing higher immigration, and measures to prevent undercutting of wages and terms and conditions. But without constant repetition, without easily understandable messages, none of this lands.

We need a programme, and a language, that chimes with the concerns of the overwhelming majority of society. Many who broadly share my politics will flinch at that sentence, seeing a capitulation to xenophobia. Stick with the “rinse and repeat” strategy, they will say. But all the while Ukip and Tory vultures circle.

Labour’s message of investment in left-behind communities has the potential to resonate among many Labour defectors to Ukip. But such messages and policies won’t work without Labour voices who can connect with disillusioned voters. That means more northern Labour MPs at the forefront, such as the north-east’s Ian Lavery, Yorkshire’s Jon Trickett and Salford’s Rebecca Long-Bailey. Rising Labour star Clive Lewis talks empathetically about concerns on immigration; his backstory – Midlands council estate, a soldier who served in Afghanistan – could resonate.

But time is not on our side. The polling is calamitous and an early election beckons. We need a strategy above and beyond “save the NHS”.