Interview by Andy Ford
Labour’s loss of the ‘Red Wall’, dozens of formerly safe seats in the North and Midlands, was a key part of Labour’s defeat in 2019, although the process first became apparent as far back as 2015 with the loss of Telford and Bolton West.
County Durham typifies the problem. Four of the county’s seats went blue in 2019, including Tony Blair’s former rock-solid seat of Sedgefield, as well as Darlington, Bishop Auckland and NW Durham. Durham County Council, which had been Labour for 100 years, ever since 1919, went to no overall control in May, with the Labour vote scattering to the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and a motley crew of independents.
Within that dismal picture, Ferryhill, a former mining town I know well, unbelievably elected a Conservative county councillor. Such a thing would have been regarded as impossible in the past, but it did happen. But in what could be a turning of the tide, a recent by-election in Ferryhill elected a 25-year-old Labour Party candidate, Curtis Bishari, to one of the County Council seats. The result was Labour 876, independent 528, Conservative 348.
Curtis agreed to be interviewed by Left Horizons to discuss the background to Durham turning to Boris Johnson and whether this can be reversed. The answers are obviously relevant to the chances of Labour forming a government any time soon.
So what happened at the 2021 County Council elections?
Well, the timing wasn’t great, we had just come out of lockdown and that gave an bit of incumbent bounce – across the three nations in Scotland the SNP got a lift, Labour is in power in Wales, so they gained there, and in England it helped the Conservatives, but also Labour in County Durham at that point was on its last legs. We had the same leader for 12 years, a couple of unpopular policies – the teaching assistants, where the Labour council cut their pay, the leadership decided it and stood by it, but a lot of the councillors didn’t agree and went on their picket lines.
And then you had the new County Hall, and the closure of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) Museum. But the Conservatives did essentially what the Labour council were going to do with the DLI – the main collection has still been moved to the History Centre, just like Labour proposed.
Was it safe seats, less activity, taking for granted?
When I first got involved there was a certain complacency across County Durham. We did a by-election in Newton Aycliffe and the data was really old; people had not had anyone knock on their door or engage with them for 20 years, and then, when we did my by-election here in Ferryhill, some of the most recent data was from 2007, when Tony Blair resigned.
Was it a shock to see Ferryhill elect a Conservative?
I think there was the time it was just Labour and that was it. Then you had a period of independents – I would say from 2010 till last year. There are a lot of Independents on Durham County council because a lot of people are hesitant to vote Tory, but they don’t fancy voting for Labour, so these independents emerge as a sort of middle ground.
But what happened in 2021 was that a lot of the independent voters just went Tory. So we had one Labour County Councillor and two Independents then one independent lost his seat to a narrow Conservative win in 2021, so then it was one Labour, one Independent and one Conservative.
What got you involved in politics?
My family are Labour, then I studied sociology at college, I got interested, so I did Politics and Sociology at Newcastle, then when I came back to Ferryhill I just got involved.
How do you think Labour can win back these red wall seats? Starmer made little progress at the locals, but did show progress in Wakefield.
The big issue here in 2019 was Brexit. It was huge especially in County Durham. Our old MP, the successor to Tony Blair, was a staunch Remainer so that didn’t help. I think the 2019 election was the Brexit election.
Another problem was that Corbyn was smeared to the point that no matter what he said it made no difference. The issue was that the Tories had something which played well with an older demographic and they just hammered that home. The slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’ appealed to Leavers, but also to Remainers who were just sick of it. It appealed to both sides.
So what does Labour need to do to get back to where it needs to be?
Hah!.. that’s a big question. We have to build trust back up and the front bench need to get out and come here more and say what they are going to do for us. On my by-election we a lot of support from across County Durham. We had Bridget Phillipson from Sunderland, and Jamie Driscoll came down from North Tyneside. We went on the doorsteps and introduced these people and the voters were like, “Woah! I haven’t had anyone Labour knock on my door for years” and we rebuilt the vote. In Sunderland, the Labour vote scattered everywhere – Greens, Lib Dems, Conservatives, Independents…
So it was anti-Labour not pro anyone else really?
Yes, unfortunately and that is what needs to be reversed.
