Will Labour's 'Sea Wall' be swept away?
At the top of St George's Church, Ramsgate, is a lantern tower visible from sea. Its stained-glass windows depict the Little Ships that sailed from the town's harbour and rescued 2,800 men from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. These are the kinds of scenes that politicians like to invoke when they celebrate 'this sceptred isle'. In February 2020, during his imperial phase, Boris Johnson called for the country to 'recapture the spirit' of our 'seafaring ancestors'. As environment secretary in 2007, David Miliband shared plans to open the entire English coastline to the public. 'We are an island nation. The coast is our birthright and everyone should be able to enjoy it,' he declared.
But beneath this grandiose rhetoric lies a melancholic reality. England's coastal towns are emblems of decline – often flattered but rarely revived. A 2023 report by the think tank Onward, 'Troubled Waters', found neighbourhoods on the coast are 42 per cent more likely to be in the worst decile for income deprivation than inland ones. Their crime rate is 12 per cent higher and their residents are 15 per cent more likely to die prematurely. A reliance on seasonal tourism makes them vulnerable to economic shocks. Rather than the paeans delivered by politicians, it is Morrissey's 'Everyday Is Like Sunday' that captures the abiding mood: 'This is the coastal town/That they forgot to close down… Come Armageddon!/Come Armageddon!'
For the Conservatives, Armageddon came in July 2024. Under Johnson, the Tories won 51 per cent of the vote and 81 coastal seats to Labour's 24. But last year, the Conservatives' 'Sea Wall' – a term popularised by the Fabian Society's Ben Cooper – fell. Labour won 66 coastal seats, sweeping away stalwarts including the former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) and the former deputy prime minister Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal). The party took Bournemouth – Margaret Thatcher's most cherished conference venue – the Isle of Wight and Weston-super-Mare.
Among the victors was Polly Billington, a plain-speaking former special adviser to Ed Miliband and BBC journalist. Hers is a tale of persistence: having lost by the narrow margin of 536 votes in Thurrock in 2015, she was reselected in East Thanet, winning a majority of 6,971 last year. Mindful of the political amnesia that afflicts seaside seats, Billington has revived the Coastal Parliamentary Labour Party to champion them (counting over 60 members). When we met in Ramsgate – 'Safety for the shipwrecked, health for the sick' runs the town's motto – she spoke of her adopted home with pride. 'We have the only Royal Harbour in the country and a port connecting us to Europe. Jane Austen wrote about Ramsgate, Van Gogh was a painter here, Wilkie Collins wrote The Woman in White here. This is not somewhere that you should be able to easily overlook.'
But Ramsgate is too easily overlooked. Though High Speed 1 has stimulated growth – King's Cross is a 90-minute journey away – its high street is strewn with shops that no one forgot to close down. Sixty per cent of these, the community campaigner Louise Brookes told me, are not advertised for rent. Landlords keep them empty for the purpose of business-rates avoidance. 'It leads to a lack of pride in the place, vandalism and antisocial behaviour. People worry about investing.'
The new High Street Rental Auction system, which will allow councils to lease persistently vacant properties, and the Community Right to Buy will help Ramsgate's cause. But Billington wants a more direct focus on such seats through a coastal communities strategy and an accompanying minister (Angela Rayner is said to be receptive). She rejects 'the Whitehall view' that this would be a fishing or marine brief: GP access and bus services are the priorities. Without distinctive improvements, Billington warned, voters will simply declare, 'I don't see it here,' when Labour points to economic growth or public spending.
It's a message that echoes the heckle deployed by a woman in Newcastle during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign: 'That's your bloody GDP, not ours.' Coastal seats, neglected by successive governments, voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, with shares surpassing 60 or even 70 per cent. After Nigel Farage's victory in Clacton, the spectre of Reform looms. In July 2024 the party finished second in 17 coastal seats and a close third in others (winning 20 per cent of the vote in East Thanet). Manston, the centre used for the processing of migrants who cross the Channel, is three miles from Ramsgate and employs a large number of locals.
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'What's most dangerous is offering any kind of silver bullet because people know it's more complicated than that,' Billington said of immigration. 'Nobody ever told me on the doorstep, 'I'm not voting for you because I want to keep the Rwanda plan.'' She cited two tests that most people agree on: 'Do we need them or do they need us? That should be the framework within which you operate an immigration system.'
In his 2021 report on coastal communities, Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, noted that 'the health and well-being of these populations has been long neglected and overlooked'. Of nowhere is this more true than Blackpool. The town where Labour held its first annual conference in 1927 has the lowest life expectancy for men in Britain (73.1 years, 18 months lower than in 2019) and nearly 44 per cent of children live in poverty.
Labour's coastal revival began here, in a May 2024 by-election amid fin de régime decadence: Blackpool South's Tory MP, Scott Benton, resigned after he was caught offering to lobby ministers in exchange for payments from journalists posing as gambling investors. Chris Webb, the Labour MP who succeeded him, recalls a time when his postman father could afford a mortgage and household bills with enough left for a two-week staycation and days out in Blackpool. But this is now 'a pipe dream'. 'You've got kids in Blackpool who have never been to the Pleasure Beach or the Tower because their parents can't afford it.' Webb spoke of mothers struggling to buy infant formula – the average tub costs £14.50 – with some resorting to shoplifting.
The Employment Rights Bill and renewable energy investment, Webb hopes, may ensure better wages and jobs. But he fears the consequences of welfare cuts – projected to increase nationwide child poverty by 50,000 – for Blackpool. 'We can't go backwards. These children don't have time for us to do that, they need action now. These are kids that are going to school hungry, they are not getting the education they need.'
Reform won 28.6 per cent in Blackpool South at the general election, and Webb acknowledges the appeal of Farage to some Labour voters. 'People are looking to shake up the status quo because they feel things can't get any worse. Nigel is an effective communicator and he's harnessed social media, especially TikTok.'
Hanging on in quiet desperation is supposedly the English way. But in Blackpool, Webb sees a different emotion: anger. 'It's moved on from frustration. People can't get access to a GP, they can't get access to a dentist, they can't get access to a… secure job, can't get access to decent housing and they are now angry.'
These are the forces that may shape the next general election. Labour's broad but shallow coalition is likened by the pollster James Kanagasooriam to a 'political sandcastle' – one that could be easily swept away by a volatile electorate. Will the tide of anger that carried Keir Starmer to victory turn against him? The answer may hinge on the fate of England's forgotten coast.
[See also: Anarchy in the 'yookay']
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