‘There’s no jobs’: struggle and regret in a Welsh town that backed Brexit | Brexit

KEbbw Vale’s once-standing steelworks is now a cluster of glittering modern buildings including a hospital, leisure center and university. Over the past decade, these public facilities have been joined by a public-private cybersecurity research center and two technology firms. A new train station was opened in the area in 2015.

But the area was quiet during the Guardian’s visit to the town in the Welsh valleys last week. Almost as many sheep appeared to be using the new facilities as there were people: A sheep and three lambs that had escaped from somewhere were busy on a strip of rewilded land next to the tech buildings.

“We’re not getting as many visitors as we’d like,” said John Edwards, 77, a volunteer at the Ebbw Vale Works Museum, an archive of the area’s history of coal, iron and steel production in the steelworks’ former head offices. “The railway station is busy in the mornings, full of people heading to Cardiff. We’ve become a commuter town.”

After the Ebbw Vale steelworks closed in 2002, Blaenau Gwent received the maximum possible EU funding for structural and regional development programmes. Most of the money went to renovation projects at the old site.

Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales voted to leave in the 2016 EU referendum; but research suggests the results in Wales may have been skewed by retired English people. Support for Brexit in Ebbw Vale was strong: 62% of voters in the town of 18,000 voted to leave; the highest rate in Wales, despite the large sums of EU money the town receives.

Out shopping on the high street, 52-year-old Claire Jones was startled when she remembered the Brexit vote. “It was shocking how many people voted Leave when you had to look around to see how much help we were getting from the EU; the flag was on signs everywhere,” he said. “People either didn’t care, or didn’t know, or what did they believe? [the leave campaign] “We talked about immigration.”

Lindsay Whittle, Plaid Cymru representative for the Welsh Senedd constituency, said: “The Brexit vote showed the depth of despair and how people feel left behind. “Now that I think about it, more information available and with more attention being paid to the issue, many people here now regret that decision.

Ebbw Vale and the wider Blaenau Gwent area are among the poorest places in the UK. Everyone interviewed by the Guardian said the town’s problems began long before Brexit slashed trade and investment and stalled growth, leaving families across the country on average thousands of pounds a year worse off.

The steel mill closed completely more than two decades ago, eliminating the last traditional skilled manufacturing jobs in the area. Despite the region receiving the maximum amount of EU funding, the number of jobs in the region until the Brexit vote in 2016 decreased steadilyas he did average wage literally.

A. report The Bevan Foundation, a Merthyr Tydfil-based think tank, said: “It is clear that no matter how successful EU funding has been, it has not boosted the fortunes of Blaenau Gwent and many other parts of Wales. If these towns have been ‘flooded with cash’, it seems a complete waste.”

In the decade since Brexit, the UK has – as predicted – EU could not close the funding gap completely. Ebbw Vale has become part of the Welsh government’s £100 million technology valleys programme, which aims to bring new industry to the region. Three tech companies have opened offices at the former steel mill site, which is also home to Goldworks, or Gwaithaur, a co-working and business support hub opening in 2024.

According to Blaenau Gwent council, more local businesses have opened in the last 10 years than in the previous 10 years (870 net profits compared to 511), and Blaenau Gwent and its neighbor Torfaen recently announced a joint joint venture. growth plan Benefiting from the Welsh government’s investment and funding for poor areas, which Labor announced at Westminster.

None of them, it seems, have yet made a tangible difference for people dealing with the cost-of-living crisis in the city. Nathan Grist, 40, one of the family-run butchers of the same name, said: “We are doing well but some businesses are barely surviving and people and customers are now having to cut back on even the little things. It’s a struggle for everyone.”

One customer, who gave his name as Mike, 62, called renovation projects at the former steel mill “white elephants.” “I worked in the steel mill until I was laid off, then I worked for myself. But the situation is different for my children and grandchildren,” he said. “There are no jobs. You have to take the train and people from other places noticed that and now it’s pushes house prices up.”

Mike, like others on the high street, said immigration was a problem in the town, but only 3.2% of Blaenau Gwent’s population was foreign-born, according to Office for National Statistics data.

Although Blaenau Gwent is the birthplace of the Labor movement, Brexit has contributed to increased support for Plaid Cymru at the expense of Labour.

It was once unthinkable that the area would abandon the party – at times it was the safest Labor majority in the country – but at the Senedd election in May the constituency of Ebbw Vale did not elect a single Labor Senedd member. Of the six seats available under the new, more proportional voting system, three went to Plaid Cymru and the other three to Reform UK.

Plaid Cymru MS’s Whittle said: “People in Wales are increasingly seeing that Westminster doesn’t work for them. The EU referendum and subsequent upheaval is a big reason why.”