‘I’m voting Reform – it can’t get any worse’: Starmer’s nightmare in England’s ‘bellwether’ election seat

“Not a penny more than your council tax, not a penny more than the bill you paid last year,” Sir Keir Starmer boasted as he whipped supporters at Labour’s 2023 local election campaign launch in Swindon.

Addressing members holding “Build a better Britain” banners, Sir Keir’s announcement the following year to freeze council tax (arguably irrelevant because Labor is not in power) was matched by the ambition of other key promises to cut energy bills and revitalize the high street.

Soon-to-be chancellor Rachel Reeves even said there were no plans to increase capital gains tax.

But three years is a long time in politics.

Gone are the dizzying days of a 17-point lead in the polls. It is a critical moment for Sir Keir, as he struggles to maintain UK-US relations in the midst of a war in the Middle East, while also facing his own struggle to save his government and his business.

And in the prime constituency of Swindon, where MPs from the party that has been in government since 1983 voted, battle lines are being drawn for local elections on May 7 that could give the clearest indication yet of Sir Keir’s future as well as the rise of Reform UK and the Green Party.

But when Sir Keir and his team visited the former railway town last month, the outlook was grim.

“I’ll vote for Reform; it can’t get any worse than this,” said pensioner John Doult, a lifelong Labor voter who is among thousands of people working in the town’s once-famous car industry.

The 86-year-old bemoaned the “horrible” state of the city centre, attributing it to the loss of Debenhams and Marks and Spencers, and also hit out at Ms Reeves’ decision to freeze income tax thresholds, which she said had created a “two-tier” pension system by penalizing those saving for retirement.

He added that immigration, a topic not far from many people’s lips, is out of control.

Sitting on a bench across from a few boarded-up shops in the city centre, Eddy also said he would vote for Reform. “You can’t do worse than what we got today,” he said. “I think the average person saw here that the Conservatives were in charge and then the Labor Party and nothing had changed.

“Our roads are still full of potholes, the city center is getting worse. We need new ideas, new people.”

For six hours Independent When I spoke to people in Swindon, no one said they would vote Labour, although not everyone supported Reform.

Jennifer Selwood said: “For the first time I won’t be voting Labor, in fact I won’t be voting at all. I won’t be voting Green or Reform. We’ll see what comes through the door.”

She and her husband Antony are unhappy about being taxed by Labor on their savings, NHS waiting times and lack of accommodation for their grandchildren. He said the town center was “tired and old” and he avoided going unless there was an appointment.

The city center has been the focal point of the Labour-controlled borough council.

Work has been completed on a new transport gateway and artworks are displayed along covered shop fronts on the site of the former open-air market. Plans are also under way as part of a long-term strategy for a new entertainment venue and thousands of affordable homes.

The city center is also home to the headquarters of Zurich Insurance, which opened two years ago.

But it is clear that many areas require investment, such as the huge former Debenhams store that remains abandoned six years after it closed. Regent Circus, a shopping complex that opened just 13 years ago, stands empty apart from Nando’s restaurant.

A council report last year said the city center needed to be “reinvented”.

Far from the city centre, where vegetation grows around its famous glass dome, the former Oasis Leisure Center has been closed for five years. The old highway and greyhound track on the northern outskirts of the town closed last year and is likely to be used for housing.

The town’s off-centre retail parks – Orbital Shopping Park and Greenbridge Retail and Leisure Park – look busy, with major work underway to revitalize closed factories left behind when Honda halted production in 2021 with the loss of thousands of jobs.

For some, the county of Swindon reflects the state of the country.

“Everyone up and down the country is feeling it,” said Carol Richardson, who traveled with her partner from Reading to Swindon along the M4 corridor to be closer to her daughter. Standing in the shadow of the closed motorway circuit, the 74-year-old added: “The high cost of living, the neglected and carelessly built homes, the destruction of our city centres. The promises to build a better country have failed.”

In February, Swindon South MP and transport minister Heidi Alexander helped launch Labour’s local election campaign. The party won 41 of 57 council seats in 2024, but its numbers have since fallen to 34; Last year, four councilors defected to the Green Party.

Interestingly, Ms Alexander used almost half of her 488-word social media appeal to Swindon to attack Reformation by saying “stay with us” and described its members as “a brunch of irrational and pound shop nationalists”. Mr Farage brought Reform’s national local election campaign tour to Swindon on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, the Green Party, buoyed by success in the Gorton and Denton byelections, is flexing its strength locally, with leader Zack Polanski telling supporters he was confident more former Labor voters would turn Green during a visit in October.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party will also take part in the elections, he said.

Leading pollster Robert Hayward said the lack of party loyalty among voters in Swindon made the area a reliable target for Reformation. In the last elections in South Swindon and North Swindon, the Conservatives lost the vote by 25 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, while Labor increased its share by 8 per cent and 10 per cent.

Lord Hayward said: “Swindon is an area where the Tory disenchantment has broken and people who don’t have to vote Labor but no longer vote Conservative. So there are people who have lost faith in politics and those are certainly the sort of people for whom Reformation would play a very good role.”

Asked what it would mean if Labor lost control of the council, Lord Hayward said it would be too early to predict the next general election but that it would “confirm the problem Labor has with white working-class voters”.