J R. R. Tolkien saw Mordor in the soot and pollution of the West Midlands. Greg Hands may be able to see hope. In last week’s local elections, several results went against the national trend. Unpacking why shine a light on how the Tory voter coalition has changed since 2010.
In Dudley, the Conservatives lost two seats to Labour, but gained one back – and retained control of the council. In Walsall, we held our ground – and control of the council – in what was a key target for Labour. The Tory majority in Solihull was bolstered by the addition of two further councillors.
It wasn’t an unalloyed success. Labour became the largest party on Worcester City Council for the first time in 23 years. We lost our overall majorities in Solihull and Tamworth. And in Stoke-on-Trent – the city, more than any other, which best encapsulates the Tory bite into the Red Wall in the last few years – Labour surged into control by going from 12 to 29 seats.
Yet one always wants to look on the bright side, especially after a slight shellacking at the fickle hands of the electorate. And even though the West Midlands loses two seats in the boundary view, 43 of its new Tory seats will be Tory-held. They will play a crucial role in deciding what the composition of the next parliament will be.
Accordingly, I set off to speak to some local Conservatives and find out if there was any reason why they thought, in their areas at least, the Tory night had not been too bad. Several key themes emerged – a remarkable number of which, one notes, I also heard at yesterday’s Conservative Democratic Organisation conference in Bournemouth.
Labour hopes the vibe of the next election is ‘time for a change’ after the last decade or so. Yet that will run exactly against their interests in parts of the Black Country and surrounding areas. Here, local Conservative after local Conservative hammered home to me that Labour has been the establishment for over fifty years, that voters want to be rid of them, and that even our recent mishaps haven’t stopped Keir Starmer from being distrusted.
The 2019 majority hinged on several factors. Different individuals invest these with differing levels of significance based on who they’ve fallen out with or if they have a book out. If you’re Vote Leave, it was Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn. If you wrote the manifesto, it was the policy offering. If you’re Nadine Dorries, it was Boris Johnson. Pay your money, and make your choice. Nonetheless, proved a particularly potent brew in the West Midlands.
As one Conservative who knows the area well told me, Brexit encapsulated a feeling of rebellion that had long been growing. Thatcherism was hardly kind to to these areas – in some parts, unemployment in the early 80s hit over twice the national average – yet Tony Blair only gave them higher immigration, shrinking industries, and a prevailing sense that Whitehall does not know best. These voters had a wish to – join in at the back – take back control, and voted to Leave by 59 per cent to 41 per cent.
This triggered a realignment to which first Theresa May and then Boris Johnson, with variable levels of application, have leant in. Andy Street shocked by winning the 2017 West Midlands mayoral election by 50.4 to 49.6 – and then retained it four years late by 54 per cent to 46 per cent. In the 2017 general election we increased our vote by 7.3 per cent, and in 2019 by 4.4 per cent, picking up an extra ten seats in the process.
Thus a region that was once marginal at best, and solidly Labour at worst, has become a firmer bastion of Toryism than one might have expected in 2010. There is a genuine “hatred” for Labour in some areas, one local Tory told me. Under first Ed Miliband, then Corbyn, and now Starmer, there is a sense that Labour has forgotten its working-class roots. Iffiness on Brexit, the appalling leadership of the ‘Absolute Boy’. and the unique force of Boris Johnson meant Labour struggled in 2019.
Then again, Starmer has done much to distance himself from his Corbynista and Remoaner past – and Tory MPs have done equally as much to distance themselves from Boris Johnson. So why isn’t Labour storming back here, as some commentators have suggested it is doing elsewhere?
Time and again, the same response: Starmer simply isn’t trusted. Call him Captain Hindsight or Sir Softie: many crucial voters in the West Midlands think he is the latest Labour leader to be more interested in patronising them, rather than pandering to them. He is, according to one person I asked, a “slippery snake” – and “just as hated as Corbyn”.
Other, firmer, language was used: such was the strength of feeling involved. Whilst I don’t want to frighten our young readers, I did have to ask my sources why these factors – which, on the surface of it, are rather national in nature – were particularly potent in the West Midlands.
Was it down to Andy Street, perhaps? Our new Joseph Chamberlain (and ConHome columnist) was certainly popular, but his influence is not close to that of Ben Houchen in his Teesside fiefdom. Instead, a lot of our success can be attributed to the growing loyalty of two groups: ethnic minority voters, and the post-industrial white working-class.
The lingering distrust between the Tories and ethnic minority voters in West Midland areas has steadily been eroded in the last twenty years. Rather than vote en masse for Labour, many such communities (of which there is a significant minority in these seats) have realised their vote can be used transactionally. So Tories have succeeded in winning them over when they reach out and offer what they want. One campaigner told me parking, of all things, was the biggest concern of local Pakistanis.
Similar stories emerge from those involved in pulling off the remarkable Tory gains in Peterborough. But one must be careful not to overplay the ethnic minority angle: Conservative successes rely far more on the growing loyalty of white, working-class voters. Having previously voted loyally for Labour, the feeling is that many are now doing so habitually for the Conservatives.
As a local Conservative put it to me, they found that in traditional suburban areas in their seats, a swing to Labour was palpable. But in those areas most marked by industrial decline or the demise of traditional industries, support for the Conservatives was more likely to hold up. This is where an almost tribal instinct to vote red had become one to vote blue, whether Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, or any other figure is the Tory leader.
Hence why many of those I spoke to were optimistic about holding onto many West Midland seats next year, despite a hefty chunk having only been won in 2019. Doing so would be a remarkable sign of the realignment in the Conservative coalition and where our safer seats may now lie. A sign, perhaps, that the 80-seat majority last time around was built on firmer grounds than some think.