Last Thursday saw a sea of pale blue flood the North East. Sunderland, South Tyneside and Gateshead all joined County Durham in electing Reform councils. But Newcastle stopped them – just. Greens polled 66,000 votes to Reform’s 59,000. Labour’s collapse was catastrophic. From 54 councillors when Starmer took over, Newcastle Labour now has two.
The old two-party politics is over. Although it’s just filtering through to the ballot box, the undercurrents have been building for years.
It’s splitting two ways. I was re-elected in my old ward of Monument. Around two-thirds of the population are young workers living in blocks in the city centre. High rents, utility bills and the student loans company reaching into their pockets and grabbing a few hundred quid every month has engaged them in a way that political rhetoric never could. They voted Green without much persuasion. In the deprived council estate on the edge of the ward, we had to work hard for the votes.
“Why should we trust you?” was the implicit question every time.
Often the answer was simple. “Have Reform knocked on your door?”
“No.”
“Well I have. Who do you think will get things done?”
“Aye, fair point.”
Yes, immigration isn’t far away from any conversation. But it’s not a policy that affects their everyday life. It’s fly tipping. Kids on motorbikes on the footpaths. The backlog of repairs to housing.
In Monument, we won by a landslide.
Walker was a different story. A massive estate of council and ex-council houses in a loop of the Tyne between Byker and Wallsend. The Walker shipyard closed in 1985. HMS Ark Royal was the last ship built there. The symbolism is thick. Britain’s post war industrial decline mirroring the loss of empire. The faux-patriotism of Thatcherism leaving Britain’s skilled workers to rust.
The stats back it up. 73.1% of households are classified as deprived. Walker has lowest level of qualifications in the city. 87% of the population are white. This should be Reform’s ground zero.
Matt Williams left Labour a few years ago. He’s a socialist – enough said. He works in Walker as a mental health practitioner. Rather than run in bohemian Heaton, or studenty Ouseburn, he started campaigning in the community where he works. He understood Walker and its people. Families are born and bred there. This is a community that still has solidarity – and old grudges. Only 7% of the population have lived there less than three years.
He joined the Greens and started door knocking. It wasn’t easy. There was a lot of explicit racism. The instinct of anyone on the left is to call it out. When the Greens first started campaigning 18 months ago, Matt described the reaction as: “Here comes the woke squad.” When the flags went up, he heard the distress at work. Lots of locals were unsettled and disturbed. They did not associate patriotism with racism. They didn’t want their community to be seen that way.
Walker has always voted Labour. Starmer betrayed them from the start. Winter fuel payments and attacks on personal independence payments hits a place like Walker hard. Matt and his team connected with the ‘local legends’. Every working-class community has them. The respected matriarchs who people turn to for advice. With a core of locals, the campaign stepped up a notch.
The doorstep conversations were the same as I had in Monument. Bins. Why is the grass not cut? Why can my kids not get a home? That last one is the most common anti-immigration argument. Why are refugees housed when my kids aren’t? Talk about austerity and you can cut through. It’s not the refugees’ fault, it’s that houses cost too much and the government isn’t building enough.
It’s not plain sailing. Reform’s candidates – where they are real people – are embedded in their communities too. It takes work. Trust has to be built. It’s got sod all to do with “better comms from No 10”. Polanski wasn’t that popular. Not so much for his views, as being one of the London Metropolitan elite. Loads of Reform voters don’t like Farage. He’s increasingly exposed as a grifter. Starmer unites everyone in loathing.
Thursday’s election results have one underreported truth. In Walker, voter turnout went from 25% to 35.6%. The working class are back. Both Reform and the Greens engaged with the community. It’s a straight fight between do we talk to them and earn their trust, or do Reform?
In Walker, Matt won.
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