‘It’s not the old Labour we had’: Voters feel abandoned in red wall town eyed up by Nigel Farage

HEOn a gray Tuesday morning, a handful of people are wandering around the center of St Helens.

Even though it’s Sunday, the town is quiet; Just a handful of locals make their way through the clothes, phone cases, flowers and fresh produce on offer.

Among them is Janet Wylde, who has always called this corner of Merseyside home but doesn’t mince words when asked how it has changed.

Janet says “Terrible” Independent under no uncertain circumstances.

He and his sister Sandra Hilton, 75, meet every week in the city center but don’t claim to enjoy it.

“There’s no joy in coming here; we look at the markets because there are no shops,” he adds.

The 79-year-old actor, now retired, worked at the head office of glass company Pilkington. Founded in 1826, this company revolutionized manufacturing and fueled coal mining and pharmaceuticals, as well as the growth of St Helens as a thriving industrial city.

Pilkington is the only remaining major employer; It too has now been divested and is a subsidiary of a Japanese company.

Janet and Sandra believe the town centre, full of empty units, takeaways and e-cigarette shops, is indicative of the struggles. It’s a story seen in post-industrial towns across the North West.

Sandra, as succinctly as her sister, describes the scenes around her as “terrible.” They agree that St Helens feel forgotten, and Janet explains why: “I think Liverpool get the most money,” she says.

St Helens may be part of the Liverpool City Region, but it’s not Liverpool. It’s about 25 miles from the city and you won’t hear many Scouse accents here. The most obvious one is that it is a rugby league city where football comes second.

But what Liverpool and St Helens share is a story of post-industrial decline.

As the port city’s docks suffered a decline in the second half of the 20th century, coal and glass works left this part of Merseyside.

While urban regeneration, culture and a thriving hospitality industry are underpinning Liverpool’s recovery from the dark days of post-war deindustrialisation, there is a strong sense that they are still waiting their turn here.

But change is on the horizon. Much of the city center has now become a building site as extensive redevelopment work continues, comprising a new market, a hotel, homes and shops, while a new £35 million transport interchange is also being built nearby.

It may be the change many in town want, but it may have come too late.

Market trader Paul Donovan, 61, is not sold on the idea that a hotel will change his fortunes.

“It needs people,” he says. “And it needs more shops. Because all it has is a bakery, bookmakers and barbers.”

“All the big boys gone, all the big stores gone to the retail park. Every time the town goes boom, to the ground.”

St Helens goes to the polls next week to elect its county council.

As an industrial city, its ties to the Labor Party are deep. It has always been governed by the Labor Party, which has 28 of 48 councillors, except for a six-year period in the 2000s when it had no overall control.

But feeling is growing that this could be the first area in Merseyside’s red castle to fall in love with Nigel Farage’s Reformation UK.

During a visit to nearby Southport in early April, Mr Farage told the BBC his party would give Labor a “run for their money” in elections on Merseyside, having achieved success across the wider region when it took control of Lancashire County Council last year.

“I don’t want to set expectations too high, but I will say this: the local government map across the North West will look very different after May 7,” he said.

To talk Daily Mail Last week Mr Farage mentioned the county by name when he said Reform could win in ‘red wall’ areas that do not intend to vote for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives as they wreak havoc on parts of the north in 2019.

“Boris never got a whiff of winning at Gateshead,” he said. “Or Barnsley, Tameside or St Helens.

“This goes well beyond the remarkable Brexit election of 2019, and in my view this transition is not a one-off… it is a fundamental move away from Labour.

Labor’s mood in St Helens looks pretty hopeless – Reform poses a new threat unencumbered by the baggage the Conservative name carries here.

Latest figures from PollCheck show that a major shift to Reform would see the number of councilors needed to control the local authority rise to 25, while Labor would fall to nine.

A Merseyside Labor Party source tells Independent It is “inevitable” that Reform will control the council after next month’s elections.

“I think the best-case scenario for Labor is that it is the largest party but not in the majority,” the insider adds.

“The worst-case scenario, which is much more likely, is for Reform to win an absolute majority.

“I think Reformation will clean up the Labor Party. I think they will clean up the Green party and get rid of most Labor councillors.”

Love for the Labor Party remains among those speaking Independent In the center of this town, which is the 29th poorest local authority in the country.

The feeling that the party they have always voted for no longer represents such areas is a factor Mr Farage will hope to exploit, and that nothing has changed while Labor is in power.

Janet is as dim on the Labor Party as she is on St Helens.

“We were always Labor,” he says. But when asked if he would vote for the party next month, he gave a clear answer.

“Absolutely not – and don’t get me started on that. This isn’t the Labor Party. It’s a cover. It’s not the Labor Party we used to have.”

His sister Sandra asks: “What have they done? We have families waiting for a house, but they can’t buy one.”

“I’m sorry, but they settled all the immigrants in new homes and they are still waiting.”

He is not the only person to voice concerns about immigration in this town, where the last census said 93.5 per cent of the local population was born in England.

This is high on the concerns of market trader Ray Watt, who travels from Liverpool to St Helens on business.

“The country can’t cope with this,” says the 58-year-old actor. “The country can’t deal with this and Labor is too soft in my eyes.

Although Ray says he “probably wouldn’t vote for Reform”, he has a theory about why Labor has stayed in power in towns like this for so long.

“I don’t think some people even think much about it,” he says. “I think they’re on autopilot – so we’re working class, so we’re Labor. We’re just Labor. Well, they’re totally useless.”

Steve Rotheram, the Labor mayor of the Liverpool City Region, believes a Reform victory in St Helens would threaten the “trajectory” of regeneration projects his combined authority is working on in the town, a possibility he describes as “very likely”.

“If there’s anyone in St Helens who doesn’t believe in what Labor believes, they’ve got a real question mark,” the mayor says Independent.

But Mr Rotheram fears the noise at Westminster is distracting from his party’s local campaigns and that the flurry of government U-turns could mean the party’s achievements are cut short.

“There’s definitely a feeling that the number of ‘own goals’ and U-turns the party has made reflects very badly on everything else,” he says.

The mayor adds: “I think the way we need to approach this election is on a hyper-local, really granular level — knocking on every door and explaining that this is not an election about national issues right now. It’s about who’s going to run your city hall.”

“Once we get beyond those who don’t support the likes of Keir Starmer, when we get beyond that and explain the type of town hall Labor is proposing, we will have a much fairer hearing.”

Labor faces an uphill battle to keep this town. Even if the mayor is right and local elections will be held on local issues, people in St Helens will need to be convinced of their continued loyalty to the party.

Sitting on a bench in the city centre, 68-year-old Keith Twist looks out across the city center and sums up the dilemma facing Labor.

“I vote Labour, but I don’t think I’ll do it this time,” he says.

When asked why, Keith says: “Well, can you see what’s going on here?”