The Economist - USA (2019-11-23)

52 TheEconomistNovember 23rd 2019

1

the labour partyhas held

Great Grimsby for 74 years.

The Lincolnshire constitu-

ency’s past mps include An-

thony Crosland, who wrote

one of the party’s most im-

portant post-war texts,

“The Future of Socialism”,

and Austin Mitchell, who

onceclaimedthat Grimsby would vote La-

bour even if the party put up a “raving alco-

holic sex paedophile”.

Yet the seat may be about to fall. A poll

for The Economist by Survation suggests

that the Conservatives lead Labour by fully

13 points (see chart). The usual caveats ap-

ply: local polling is tricky, the sample small

and there are three weeks to go. But the big

lead of the Tory candidate, Lia Nici (pic-

tured), implies not only that Labour is in

danger of losing one of its most dependa-

ble seats. It also suggests that Boris John-

son’s targeting of working-class, pro-Brexit

towns in the north and the Midlands could

well succeed. A realignment in British poli-

tics may be in the making.

Labour’s decades in charge of Grimsby

have seen steep decline. In the 1950s the

town was home to the biggest fishing fleet

on earth. The docks were a thriving com-

munity of small factories making nets and

fishing gear, busy shops and smokehouses.

Trawlers packed the harbour, as the world’s

biggest ice factory, built to provide crushed

ice for ships, loomed over everything. Now

many of Grimsby’s fine buildings are crum-

bling and its streets quiet.

The gutting of the fishing industry has

devastated related trades (there were once

eight jobs onshore for every one at sea). At

5.3%, Grimsby has one of Britain’s highest

unemployment rates, and the social pro-

blems that go with it. Ex-fishermen can be

found drinking in pubs at 9am. Drug gangs

have set up in the homes of vulnerable peo-

ple, a practice known as “cuckooing”.

Such decline has created a powerful

feeling of being ignored by Westminster

and taken for granted by Labour. Locals

complain that “London” is more interested

in wasting billions on white elephants like

hs2, a railway connecting the capital to big

northern cities, than in improving the dire

local rail links. In so far as “they” notice the

east coast at all, they spray money at Hull,

on the Yorkshire side of the Humber (Grim-

barians’ dislike of Londoners is as nothing

compared with their disdain for “Yorkies”).

All this helped to persuade Grimsby to

vote by more than 70% to leave the Euro-

pean Union, one of the highest shares in

the country. Of the 70-odd constituencies

that backed Brexit by more than 65%, the

Tories already control 38; they now have

their eye on the Labour-held remainder in

the north and Midlands (see map overleaf ).

Mr Johnson’s pro-Brexit message seems

to resonate. Grimbarians blame the eufor

destroying their fishing industry with its

regimeofquotas,andregardBrussels as

The election

The battle for Brexitland

GRIMSBY

Labour may be about to lose control of one of its greatest northern strongholds

Grim news for Labour

Britain,GreatGrimsbyconstituency

2019 generalelectionvotingintention*,%

Sources:Survation;

The Economist

0 20 40 60

Other

Lib Dem

Brexit Party

Labour

Conservative

Vote share, 2017

Central estimate

95% confidence interval

*Telephone poll of 401 adults

surveyed on November 14th-15th.

“Don’t know ” and refused removed

swing

seats

Britain

53 PrinceAndrew’sdisastrous interview

54 Bagehot: Knock knock

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