A few years ago, in what was hailed as the conference speech that set him on the path to Downing Street, Keir Starmer declared his mission was to transform Labour into the ‘political wing of the British people’. I’ve just asked Andy, a former soldier in the Lancers who lost several of his comrades in Northern Ireland, how he thinks that’s going.
‘They’re just like the old lot,’ he says grimly. ‘They don’t listen. They get in and they do what they want.’
I’m in Ashby, a small suburb of Scunthorpe, where Reform candidate Andrea Jenkyns is poised to snatch the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty. From the high street you can see the ruddy towers of the nearby steelworks, which the Government has just pledged to rescue – and if necessary, nationalise. Surely that’s something Andy approves of?
‘I worked there,’ he tells me. ‘They should have stepped in years ago. Everyone around here could see it coming.’
So how is he going to vote, I ask. ‘Reform. We’ve got to do something about immigration. It’s daft what’s going on. In the war we had a handful of Spitfires, and that was all it took to stop Hitler’s entire army. Today he’d have to get a few small dinghies and he’d be across.’
Nigel Farage reacts as Reform wins the Runcorn and Helsby by-election – by just six votes
Five minutes down the road, outside what on this sweltering day is the appropriately named Sunshine Hall, I pop the same question to Joanne, a carer who has just voted.
‘Reform,’ she replies. ‘I’m not racist but, sorry, the country needs sorting out.’
She takes the hand of her young niece and clutches it tightly. ‘The immigrants who come don’t understand the rules. At least the ones round here. They get everything on a silver platter.’
She’s immediately followed by Laura, a local nurse. ‘I voted Reform,’ she tells me defiantly. ‘I want the country back. It doesn’t feel like Britain any more.’
The anger of the residents of Scunthorpe is not necessarily surprising, given the area’s long legacy of industrial decline. So I travel up the coast to Cleethorpes.
Against the balmy backdrop, this vigorous seaside town appears to be defying some of the hardships visited upon its neighbours. Papa’s fish and chip shop on the pier – ‘Britain’s Best’ – is doing a brisk trade. Families are playing on the sand. A billboard boasts of the £18 million investment that is set to redevelop the historic seafront.
Reform leader Nigel Farage joins Dame Andrea Jenkyns to celebrate her win as Great Lincolnshire’s new mayor
Then I get talking to Karen, a local barmaid. When she’s not at work she volunteers at her local church, currently doubling up as a polling station. She begins by expressing her concern at what she sees are Keir Starmer’s
illiberal views on trans rights. ‘We’re all different under God,’ she explains. But then, almost apologetically, her tone shifts.
‘I hate to say it. But I do feel like we’re becoming a dumping ground. We’ve had an issue on the beach with immigrants propositioning young girls. There’s a lot of rage building, and this is where it comes from.’
The sprawling new Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty boundary stretches from the Humber as far down as South Holland. So I head for Grantham, one of the few parts of the country comfortable enough to return a Tory MP at the last election. As I pull up outside the Guild Hall polling station the statue of Margaret Thatcher shoots a steely gaze at the betting shop and mini-market that represent the changing face of the nation’s high streets.
Change the former grocer’s daughter would no doubt have disapproved of.
Barry, a former railway worker, isn’t keen on the change he’s witnessing either.
‘Labour’s let us down on immigration,’ he tells me. ‘They promised to stop the gangs and they’ve gone back on it.’
‘Labour’s let us down on immigration,’ Barry, a former railway worker, tells Dan Hodges. ‘They promised to stop the gangs and they’ve gone back on it.’ Pictured: Sir Keir Starmer works the phones ahead of the local elections
His wife Amanda agrees. ‘I actually voted Labour at the last election.’ She looks down at the floor. ‘But I just couldn’t bring myself to this time.’ As they leave, Pat, a local jeweller, breezes by. She’s rushing to drop off her postal vote. ‘I voted Reform,’ she shouts over her shoulder as she passes. ‘Why?’ I shout back.
She stops for a second, turns, and smiles. ‘You know why,’ she says.
In the wake of Reform’s destruction of Labour and the Tories in Thursday’s elections, the British political establishment is preparing to indulge in yet another ritualistic Dance of the Dead.
Polls will be conducted. Reports commissioned. Reams of analysis produced. All to answer the question: ‘What happened, and what should we do?’ There’s no need. To paraphrase Tony Blair, there are three reasons for Nigel Farage’s triumph. Immigration. Immigration. And immigration.
Every single issue the voters have with the present Government, and its predecessor, is channelled through that prism.
Anger over winter fuel, pensions and disability cuts? ‘How come we can afford hotels for migrants but we can’t look after our own?’
Disillusionment the change Labour promised hasn’t materialised? ‘Look at the small-boat invasion. It’s actually getting worse!’
Fury expressed through the gritted refrain that all politicians are the same?
‘They’ve been promising to take back control of the borders since Brexit. The Tories lied, and now Labour’s lied.’
This morning senior politicians in both the ranks of the Government and Official Opposition are clinging forlornly to the fiction that Thursday was an electoral spasm, after which normal service will be resumed. They are utterly delusional.
This is the last time the voters will grasp our political class by the lapels and try to shake some sense into them. The British Establishment is on its final warning.
Either Keir Starmer and his ministers listen and act – and it is solely up to them, given Kemi Badenoch has consigned her party to political irrelevance for the next couple of years – or they may as well hand Nigel Farage the keys to Downing Street today.
‘In the wake of Reform’s destruction of Labour and the Tories in Thursday’s elections, the British political establishment is preparing to indulge in yet another ritualistic Dance of the Dead,’ writes Dan Hodges. Pictured: Reform leader Nigel Farage
There is nowhere left to cower. The Government faces a binary choice. Labour either moves to withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights, introduces a form of offshore processing, accelerates enforced removals, slashes legal migration and then broadcasts it from the rooftops.
Or it can wait three or four years, and see those policies introduced by a Reform government, possibly in coalition with Robert Jenrick’s New Conservatives.
That is it. There are no cheat codes. There can be no more deflections. Or self-comforting conceits that a bit more cash thrown at the NHS, breakfast clubs and the living wage can somehow buy off a furious electorate.
On Thursday Britain didn’t just speak, it screamed till it was turquoise in the face. ‘STOP IMMIGRATION!!!!’
Keir Starmer wanted to be the political wing of the British people. In response they have thrown the ballot box at him.
He had better not force them to reach for an electoral Armalite.
