Residents of Ashford and Folkestone reflect on Labour government
Regulars at a weekly coffee morning at the local library in Wye want more from their Labour government.Ashford, a constituency held by the Conservatives since the 1930s, now has a Labour MP, which came to the surprise of many, including Labour themselves, who had not included it on their list of target seats.But there was some unhappiness among residents at the coffee morning, particularly over the removal of the winter fuel payment for some pensioners last year.
'Pull up their socks'
Patricia Dalton said she was "cross" when the policy was first announced.She said: "They did it when we really needed it. People that can't get out, they either go without food or heating."Although Ms Dalton welcomed the recent U-turn on the policy, she said this was not enough at the moment to change her attitude towards the government."They've got to pull up their socks and change what's going on and if things get better, I'll change my opinion," she said.
Recent headlines around the government's planned changes to disability benefits, including the personal independence payment (Pip), concerned Kay Lord.She said: "We become quite vulnerable as we get older… I've got a friend that needs benefits and she's frightened that they're going to take it away from her."The government has been keen to emphasise that the health service is a priority, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves announcing an increase to NHS funding of 3% a year.That was something former intensive care nurse Devaranee Chant welcomed.
She said: "They are trying to put money into the NHS. I was with the NHS for 42 years, I got the best end of it… It is very important."But the issue of small boat crossings is a worry for Robert Taylor, who thinks the amount of money spent on asylum hotels is "absolutely ridiculous". The National Audit Office (NAO) has predicted that asylum housing costs will hit £15.3bn over the next decade, while earlier this month the government pledged to end their use by 2029.Its Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, aimed at tackling the crossings, is currently going through Parliament.
'More time' needed
There is a more positive outlook towards the government's policies, particularly those centred around education, at the gates of Mundella Primary School in Folkestone.Folkestone and Hythe, once the constituency of former home secretary and opposition leader Michael Howard, had also been blue for decades before Labour's surprise victory last year.The school is part of the government's pilot for free breakfast clubs, which co-headteacher Lauren Wharmby said had made "a real difference".Having run a free breakfast club for a couple of years, the school now has extra income to provide daily breakfast to all its pupils after becoming one of the early adopters of the pilot.Ms Wharmby said: "It's really successful, we have about 60-80% of our children turn up every day… Our children come in so much more settled and ready to learn."
One parent, Douglas Slocombe, who the BBC met at pick-up time, said he believed investing in an "underfunded" education system would prove effective but patience was needed.He said: "It's hard to tell after a year, I think you need to give them [the government] a bit more time."
In the recent Spending Review, one of the largest funding boosts announced was for the education sector. The core schools budget is due to rise by £2bn in real terms by 2029.
"So far, so good", says another father, Agberia Martins Biuwovwi. "We parents, we know we are benefitting from it," he added.Another key priority for Labour over the past year has been housing. They have reintroduced mandatory housing targets and committed to building 1.5m homes by the next election.But while mother Lily Reynolds said she recognised homes needed to be built, she was worried about the impact of new developments.She said: "If there's more houses, at least more people [are] able to get somewhere… [but] it seems to they're trying to take the history out of Folkestone."The government has been contacted for comment.
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By stressing multiple, complex causes, they also avoid having to act in the short term. They can claim to be working on long-term solutions that will get to the root of the problem, rather than looking for a 'quick fix.' The reality is that white working-class anger has, on and off for 25 years, been driven by hostility to large-scale immigration. This cannot be avoided: many voters will remain angry as long as legal immigration runs into the hundreds of thousands, and many others will stay angry if they feel politicians do not have control of the borders. This is not new, although the intensity of opposition to large-scale immigration has grown alongside the scale of rising numbers. This pattern has been evident since the 1970s; Ipsos-Mori's historic polling shows that the number of British people who considered immigration an important issue broadly tracked the rise in immigration levels, which surged under Tony Blair's 'open door' approach to arrivals from the EU. Unless and until politicians stop the boats, reduce legal immigration, and reject most of those caught in the asylum system, they will make no progress in easing white working-class anger. This is not to suggest that immigration is the sole cause of white working-class frustration. It is simply to recognise that their hostility to large-scale immigration exists and cannot be explained away. Fairness and control Angry working-class people have always talked about immigration and asylum in terms of fairness and control – almost never race, religion or culture. When you look at how opposition to large-scale immigration has evolved, from concerns about pressure on public services to lower wages or welfare claims, it almost always comes back to these two core issues. In the recent wave of hostility to asylum seekers being housed in hotels, for many working-class voters it is the very idea of hotels being used. For many, hotels are a luxury they could never afford. In numerous communities, hotels are where life's biggest moments are celebrated: weddings, christenings, anniversaries and so on. The idea of people receiving long-term stays in such places for free creates a deep sense of injustice. It isn't limited to housing. Other stories about immigration have touched the same fairness nerve. In January, The Telegraph revealed that asylum seekers could receive quicker treatment in a major London hospital. While those who designed the system may see this as the decent thing to do for people with particular needs, it is hard to think of a single idea more likely to drive struggling working-class voters into Reform's camp. In Epping, and increasingly elsewhere in Britain and Ireland, there are also concerns about the safety of local communities, especially the safety of young women. There have been several high-profile reports of crimes committed by young men from abroad staying in these hotels. This links to the second major theme: control. This has always been the other main driver of hostility to government immigration and asylum policies, repeatedly raised over the past 25 years. Many feel the state is unable or unwilling to exercise proper control over Britain's borders, and, more broadly, over laws that shape immigration and multiculturalism. These are the themes Reform is tapping into so successfully. Sense of unfairness Think about Reform's recent pivot to crime and Farage's claim that the country is lawless. This could prove so fruitful for them because it speaks to a broader feeling that Britain, while barely governed, always seems to make decisions that help other people – not just recent arrivals, but also the rich, big businesses and others. This sense of unfairness has intensified dramatically since Brexit. Look at almost any policy area and the same story appears. Sometimes immigration deepens feelings of injustice, as with the NHS and housing, but the theme stands on its own. The NHS is in crisis and most people struggle to get timely GP or hospital appointments. Meanwhile, the wealthy can simply pay to skip the queue. Wages remain stagnant and people have to work harder for the same pay, yet millions are seen to exploit the welfare system. Crime and anti-social behaviour are widespread, but serious criminals get only a slap on the wrist. Working-class people face rising living costs, yet believe businesses are profiteering during tough times. Young people can't afford to live in the areas where their families have been rooted for generations, while others receive help to do so. In short, working-class voters feel the country is failing and lacks any real sense of natural justice. Farage recently faced criticism for saying he would like to explore deporting serious criminals to harsh prisons in places like El Salvador. Critics dismissed this as unrealistic and said it showed he was all talk. But, as ever, Farage was tapping into something real. At a time when anger runs so deep, driven by these emotional themes of fairness and control, working-class voters want someone who sounds like them, who is as angry as they are and speaks in the same blunt terms. Why? Because only someone like that, they believe, would ever come up with the right policies in the first place. And in any case, someone prepared to talk about sending hardened criminals abroad might at least settle for building a few new prisons here in Britain. For many, that would feel like a fair and reasonable result. Cultural concerns The Left has long assumed that white working-class anger is ultimately driven by nationalism and a desire to protect British or English 'culture'. Over the last 25 years, I can honestly say these themes have barely featured in the many focus groups and polls I have run. Even when I interviewed British National Party (BNP) voters in the late 2000s for an anti-BNP campaign, the working-class men I spoke to talked almost entirely about their wages being undercut and the strain on local services. They rarely mentioned culture at all. However, the sheer scale of recent arrivals is starting to shift this slightly. It isn't that people now talk about Britain being historically white; you certainly never hear them discuss threats to Christianity or the monarchy. Instead, you hear complaints about protests over foreign wars, where people who were not born in Britain take to the streets as though everyone shares their views. The recent protests over the Middle East are a prime example; most people simply find them baffling. You also hear frustration that ordinary displays of patriotism are treated as suspect or offensive, while everyone else is encouraged to express their own identities freely. Until now, national and cultural concerns have barely featured among most working-class voters, but they are growing quickly. This is what risks giving rise to a movement that drifts in more troubling directions. Reform is a mainstream party and will keep a lid on this sentiment for the majority, but around the edges we could see some of the extreme behaviour that Starmer claimed was widespread last year. Either way, Britain now has a fully-fledged working-class movement born of anger. In the short term, Reform will benefit most. If the mainstream parties cannot find a way to respond to at least some of this, they risk being swept aside.
