It’s a busy day in Wigan. The Greater Manchester town has found itself in the middle of the fallout from last week’s European elections – in part due to comments made by Lisa Nandy, its Labour MP.
Nandy said this week that it was constituencies like hers – where a majority of people voted for Brexit (63.9% in 2016) and have returned a Labour MP to Westminster since 1918 – which would see any attempt to hold a second EU referendum as a “breach of trust”.
“There is a huge frustration amongst Labour voters who voted Leave in towns like mine to see leading figures from the Labour Party out calling for a second referendum before there’s been any serious attempt to implement the result of the first,” she said, after Labour sources hinted this week that a second Brexit poll could become full party policy.
Newsagents in the town display the Daily Mirror’s headline – “Corbyn to back second referendum” – alongside the local Wigan Post, which tells how Universal Credit is leaving thousands of locals in debt. Yet even in this Labour heartland, the newspaper of choice for many seems to be the right-leaning, Brexit-backing Sun. “We used to sell more of the Mirror,” the agent at Frank Ryding’s stall in the town’s market hall says. “But now it’s definitely The Sun.”
It’s a tidbit that is perhaps unsurprising considering how Wigan voted in last week’s EU Elections. Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party secured 26,921 votes, around 41%, compared with Labour’s 13,057, or 20%.
“People who’ve been Labour all their lives don’t know where to turn,” Cath Knight, 58, says as she attends to a stall selling fitted blinds and curtains. “We were told it was one vote [for Brexit]. But it’s as though they think it will be the best of three votes.”
“In the past, in a fantasy world, Jeremy Corbyn would have been the answer, but you have to be realistic”
- Cath Knight, Wigan resident
Knight, who lives in Wigan and works a few hours a day helping the owners of the stall, said Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour seems to lack the sorts of solutions to the problems she thinks the town faces. “In the past, in a fantasy world, Jeremy Corbyn would have been the answer, but you have to be realistic. How could we afford to pay anyone £10 an hour here?” she asks, referring to the leader’s flagship policy of increasing the national minimum wage. Knight voted for the Brexit Party last week.
“You feel betrayed,” she adds. “We’ve other things we should be thinking about. Like here, the town centre needs re-thinking. The bigger estates need more doing to them. They need to address what there is for the young people to do.”
“Just because you’re working class, you might not have gone to university, but not everyone is made for it and there needs to be better opportunities in things like retail or construction,” she says.
“People think working class people are racists, but we’re not, we’re realists. I just think its common sense that you can’t keep having people coming in and not contributing to the country. That just can’t keep happening.”
Next door, Sylvia Holcroft, 71, is a blur as she runs about helping customers at a ladies’ wear stall. Despite the rush, she stops to talk. “What Labour have done to Wigan is a disgrace. They’ve killed it,” she says without hesitation. “We’ve had one vote and one should be enough.”
“It’s time Labour were booted out of Wigan,” she says, before turning to speak to a customer about a shirt. “Labour? A waste of time,” she adds without taking a breath. “I voted Brexit Party last week – and proud of it. I have voted Labour in the past but never again.
“You only have to look around to see what Labour have done,” she says gesturing to the hall. A vacant Morrisons supermarket sits next door. Stalls, she claims, are being deserted every month. The town centre seems almost cut in half – between a hulking new shopping mall and its older counterpart – and the issue is a hot topic locally, where the Labour-held borough council is battling to cope with the high street downturn.
“Oh, that’s it – you’ve got me going now, I won’t sleep tonight!” Holcroft says.
For many who do still vote Labour, their association with the party stems from long-held, family tradition. “I’ve voted Labour because my dad always voted for them,” Irene Blackshaw, 83, says. “I’ve voted Labour all my life.” Except, that is, last week.
Blackshaw says the party’s usual turn-out operation didn’t seem to be in full swing: a ride to the polling station didn’t come and she couldn’t get out of the house without it. “I don’t have many opinions on [Brexit],” she says. “But I do think we’ve voted already.”
The fierce debate over Labour’s policy has put places like Wigan into new, and rare, focus nationally – and not just for those on the left. Perhaps it was the timing of his last-minute announcement, but news that Tory leadership candidate Rory Stewart was due to visit Wigan on his “Rory Walks” tour of Britain was relegated to a small paragraph on page 7 of the Wigan Post on Wednesday.
“In my opinion, Brexit needs to be taken out of politics. There are some issues that are too much for ordinary people to consider. It’s all just too complicated and we’ve all got other things to do.”
- Elizabeth Holloway, Wigan resident
Despite the muted reaction from the local press, Stewart was greeted by a handful of Wiganers who seemed genuinely interested in the 46-year-old’s bid to lead the Conservatives – and the country.
“I’m not here to campaign in Lisa Nandy’s constituency,” he told HuffPost UK. “What I’m here to do is get out and prove that we have more that unites us than divides us. I’ve had people come up to me and say they will vote for me. It’s surprising how many Conservatives have come out of the woodwork.”
Asked if he is the future Tory leader who could take Wigan for the party, he said: “Wigan, no, but Warrington? Absolutely,” and after a quick cuppa, that’s where he headed. But not before meeting Elizabeth Holloway, a 61-year-old retired solicitor who travelled 13 miles from Swinton to meet Stewart, despite having been a Labour member for most of her adult life until 2016.
“It was when Jeremy Corbyn was elected a second time. That was it for me, it felt like the final straw. I knew I had to leave,” she says. “[Stewart] seemed intelligent – he gets it. I was sympathetic. He’s the sort of person we need.
“It’s interesting because I think Lisa Nandy is great – one of my all-time favourite Labour politicians – but why can’t she and Rory Stewart be on the same side on this?”
“In my opinion, Brexit needs to be taken out of politics,” she adds.
“There are some issues that are too much for ordinary people to consider. It’s all just too complicated and we’ve all got other things to do. I’m retired now and I’ve had time to watch it all and catch up with things on Twitter but most people don’t have time.”
She says she doesn’t understand the calls for a second referendum.
“I don’t think there should have been a vote in the first place – I voted Remain – but David Cameron saw to that and here we are. It will divide us even more and leaving with no deal would have to be on the ballot, and I think that’s what we’d end up with.”
“I might not be in Labour anymore, but I do still vote for them,” Holloway says. “I wouldn’t join the Tory party – even to support Rory Stewart – that’s a step too far.”