Much derided, Essex man has been a staple of British general elections
for the past four decades.
Within the county the parliamentary seats of Harlow and Basildon have long
been seen as political bellwethers. It was voters in these places, often from
working class backgrounds, who turned to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and who
Tony Blair did so much to reach out to a decade later.
Famously, the early declaration of a Conservative hold from the Basildon
count in 1992 signalled that John Major was going to be returned to power. Five
years later Labour reversed its fortunes and won the seat with 55% of the vote
and a majority of 13,280.
However, today Essex is solid blue. Despite a terrible campaign by
Theresa May the Tory majority over Labour in Harlow is 7,031 while in South
Basildon and East Thurrock (the successor seat to the Basildon, which should typically
be a marginal) it stands at 11,490. In Thurrock, a constituency which Labour won
in every General Election between 1945 and 2005 (with the exception of 1987 when
it was narrowly captured by the Conservatives), in 2017 sent a Tory to
represent them in parliament for the third consecutive time.
No doubt many will sneer at the people in these areas, particularly those
in the less affluent parts of south Essex, for being too stupid to know what’s
good for them. Spitting Image’s ‘stupid voter’, whose
support for the Tories only increased the more the Major cabinet chastised him,
was after all from Essex Road and spoke with a heavy estuary accent.
This is often, euphemistically, referred to as false consciousness.
However, far from being delusional what many on the Left failed to grasp is
that these voters were aspirational. They were people who wanted to build their
own businesses and buy their own homes. After all, it was Mrs Thatcher’s Right
to Buy which well and truly flipped Basildon blue for over a decade.
Winning
towns like Harlow, Basildon and Thurrock remains key for Labour, if it hopes to
form a government. Yet it is not just economics which is holding Labour back in
these areas – it also has an image problem.
Earlier this
month the Guardian reported
on new research
conducted by Britain Thinks which showed:
“Participants in the focus groups, which in
Crewe were 18-44 year olds, and in Thurrock, older voters, repeatedly mentioned
the fancy grain quinoa when asked what food best represented the Labour party
of 2018.”
These voters
view of Labour as a party of student protest and hippie communes went hand in
hand with their belief that the party had abandoned what they considered to be
‘real’ Labour values.
This perception
of Labour as overly metropolitan is not new. As for the Tories they have their own
image problems too. One older Thurrock voter told Britain Thinks that: “They’d [the Conservatives] make pheasant and quail for dinner.”
While
neither of these views are necessarily true they will matter come election
time. In the meantime this is yet another indication that there is a political
re-alignment going on in England at the moment whereby traditional class based
voting is being flipped on its head.