Part-electoral run-running labor against UK reform

Against the hanger and the tent on the shore of the Bridgewater channel that flows through Runcorn in the northwest of England, John Caldwell has already decided which box will mark on Thursday in his ballot.

“I’m going to vote on the reform,” said the ex -tattooed. “(Sir Keir) Starmer is worse than the Tories. They hit pensioners by eliminating the winter fuel quota and will now reach people with disabilities … while thousands of pounds are wasted in a war in Ukraine.”

Caldwell is far from supporting the Populist Party on the right of Nigel Farage, which will advance to the north of England on May 1 in the local elections, to the mayor’s competitions and the first house of the elections in the general election in July.

The reform is expected to take dozens of conservative council seats, who enjoyed wide success the last time these areas were played in the middle of a COVID-19 vaccine rebound.

But in the Runcorn and Helsby elections, the reform seeks to take advantage of a wave of hostility of voters towards the Government who has left it overwhelming the favorite of the bookstores to annul the majority of 14,700 Labor from last July.

The secondary election to La Seu just south of Merseyside, which has an electorate of about 71,000, follows the resignation of former Labor Mike Mike Amesbury convicted of punches to a component.

In a sign of the reform ambition, Farage has visited Runcorn three times in recent weeks, but the Prime Minister has not been seen.

The victory for the right -wing party, which has maintained a strong flying despite the unparalleled revelations on some candidates and a large profile fall between Farage and the former deputy of reform Rupert Lowe, would send the shock waves through the parliamentary Labor Party.

The most interested will be the deputies on the red wall of the old working class Heartlands in Midlands, Wales and the north of England. They went to Ukip and then to the Tories after the Brexit, but returned to work last year.

Starmer has tried to support these constituencies in recent months, facing the right, including by reducing the budget of aid abroad, curbing irregular migration and saying that he no longer believes that “trans women are women” Cultured of the Supreme Court this month.

The pivots in various political areas have raised concerns of some urban deputies that the labor is for graduates of the left.

At the party’s office at a local mall, Richard Tice, an assistant leader of the reform, said it would be “notable” to fight the work in his 16th safest seat, warning that any victory would be reduced to “a few hundred votes.”

“The work had a massive, what I call a loving landslide (in July) and months later they have completely screwed it,” he added.

The Farage party has campaigned against the Government’s climate goals, in local deprivation and more and more on immigration, focusing on the concern about a local hotel that has been used to house hundreds of migrants.

“It has become a landing ground for illegal immigrants,” said Sarah Pochin, a candidate for the reform elections. An old magistrate working for Shell International, Pochin has rejected Runcorn’s low educational achievement, his lack of leisure facilities and his deprivation pockets.

In turn, rival candidates have accused him of “talking” about the city and dissuading potential investment.

Karen Shore, ex -Deputy Council leader, pledged to lead a “positive” campaign instead of “going down to the gutter”.

He said that his priorities were promoting public services, regenerating Alt Street, improving transport links and increasing the presence of police officers.

Shore has also cited 6,000 potential jobs in the “green energy cluster” through a Carbon storage and storage storage project Hynet.

However, many former work voters expressed anger about the recent cuts in healthcare spending. Neil, who refused to give his last name, said he had voted for Starmer last year, but did not know who will return on Thursday.

“I am angry at the labor that reduces the winter fuel bonus, and then taking money from people with disabilities is a riot,” he said. “I do not know if voting labor or liberal Democrat; the only party that I will not consider to vote is the reform.”

Shore acknowledged that he was “uncomfortable with the fact that some people with disabilities are afraid”, while emphasizing that the benefits system needed a radical review.

Despite being a right -wing party, the reform has addressed certain problems: it has called for the steel industry to be nationalized and committed to reverse the cuts to the amount of winter fuel.

Labor figures seem to resign from the loss of many supporters in Runcorn, but they hope that they can convince the old Green, Lib Dem and “soft” voters in the richest villages and smaller villages elsewhere in the headquarters to vote tactically against Pochin.

“It will be a very close race,” a labor activist said. “We need to motivate the labor supporters … and we have to win some old Tories and LIB DEMS who are terrified of the possibility of having a reformist Member of the United Kingdom.”

But the old labor voters outside the taxi rank in Frodsham, the city city where Amesbury threw the punches, said that they doubted to go out again in support of the coast.

Dan Jones, a local taxi driver, said that he had always supported the labor, but changed to the reform because Starmer had not done enough for the people who work. “He (Starmer) is a conservative who intends to be a man of work,” he said.

Labor campaigns suggested that the ancient conservative voters were sympathetic to the message that the NHS would not be safe with Farage, who before said he was “open” to the idea of ​​a health -based healthcare system.

Tactical voting could be crucial. Two voters who usually support the greens in Helsby and Frodsham said they could support the work next week to block the reform.

But tactical voting can cut both ways. Barry Howard, who works at a runcorn guitar store, said that Tory was usually voted, but that he was renovated. “No one here has a good word about Keir Starmer,” he said.

Jonathan Hinder, a new deputy who belongs to the Caucus of Socially Conservative blue work, said that a strong show of Runcorn reform and Helsby would add to the pressure on Starmer to obtain results in areas that imported the voters.

“I think the result will pause people who do not take some of the reasons why people vote for the reform,” he said. “We move in the right direction, but we have to deliver -and quickly.”