A union jack emblazoned with the Queen’s face was hanging over the door to the Thames View library in Barking on Saturday, low enough that taller visitors had to bow to get in. As children of all colours and backgrounds jumped on a bouncy castle outside and had their faces painted in red, white and blue, it was hard to see the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations here as anything other than an illustration of vibrant, patriotic, multicultural Britain. The bunting, sausage rolls, cakes and even drinks cartons – in red, white and blue flavours – all showed that in this part of east London, there can be no doubts about Her Majesty’s popularity.
The European Union? Not so much. A survey by the local newspaper, the Barking and Dagenham Post, has shown that 67% of residents want to leave the European Union. Amid growing evidence that the referendum vote is balanced on a knife edge, this is the kind of working-class area that the remain campaign needs to do better in. And, within the cross-party coalition committed to keeping Britain in the EU, this is overwhelmingly Labour’s problem. Labour has held Barking since it was created in 1945, and the party has controlled Barking and Dagenham council since it was formed in 1965.
So, can Labour win its own voters over? And if so, how?
Sipping tea from a union jack cup and saucer, Joyce Cracknell, a former Ukip local candidate, is exactly the sort of person that Britain Stronger in Europe should be worried about.
Cracknell is retired now, but founded the tenants’ association on her council estate in 1989 and has worked hard for people in Barking and Leyton for decades. And she is in no doubt that leaving the EU would make everything better.
“We should go our own way. I want the country back,” she says. “We’re not allowed to make our own laws – 65% of our laws come from the EU. They are unelected and we are kowtowing to them.
“Two of my uncles fought and died for this country, one in the first world war, one in the second world war. ‘For your tomorrow we gave our today’ – that’s what they fought for. But our today is nothing like their tomorrow.
“I hate this country as it is now, I hate this government …” She pauses. “I don’t hate them, I don’t hate anyone, but I’m at odds with them. I love the countryside, I love my country, but I want it back. We should control our own destiny.”
Barking has changed a great deal in the last 10 years. The Ford production plant at Dagenham has been gradually shrinking, but the ranks of warehouses and distribution centres remain and Barking is still the place to find lorry drivers and delivery drivers linking London with Essex.
For many of the people who live and work here, the most visible change has been the arrival of a large number of immigrants. Susie Miller is a theatre director from Hackney who has been working as an artist on projects in Barking since 2007.
“When I first started working around here, it was quite a strange place for me to come,” she says. “I was used to a pretty diverse community. But here, it was all white. It shocked me, to be honest. But I understand the feeling that the white working class have here. They feel abandoned.”
In 2006, Barking became briefly notorious as a hotbed of support for the British National party, which won 12 council seats in the local election. All lost their seats in 2010, but five years on, support for their views hasn’t disappeared .
Kevin Brooks grew up in Barking and worked in the area as a lorry driver, warehouse worker and in cafes. He says the area is “unrecognisable”.
“The country isn’t so bad, but it’s the fact of all the illegals, what I call the foreigners. England is sinking.”
Does he mean that the number of people coming here is pushing the land down? He nods. “The water level is rising higher and higher. The more people that are on the island, the worse it gets.”
At the age of 47, Kevin has only voted “four or five” times in his life. He’s not sure of the party he voted for last time. “It’s a British party, the one with the lion” – he probably means Britain First, and is strongly in favour of Brexit.
“More jobs,” he says. “If we leave, hopefully they’re going to kick out all the foreigners and there will be more jobs for English people. I’m not prejudiced. Some of my friends are foreigners. I’ve got black in the family. But we don’t have enough houses. My neighbour, she’s got herself, her partner and two children in a one-bedroom flat. There’s no room.”
If there is any solace for Labour’s remain campaign, perhaps it can be found in some of the newer arrivals. Emma Rodet is a French woman who has become a British citizen. “It’s not because of Brexit – even if that happened, I would still be able to stay here. It’s because I felt that I have all the advantages even as a European but that I live in this country, so I should be part of the nation.”
She is keen for the UK to remain in the EU, but Rexhep Emini, a Kosovan who arrived in Britain in 1999, is not sure which way he will vote. He has been in Barking for four years, working as a plumber and has become a British citizen. He has always voted Labour. “It’s an emotional thing,” he says, paying tribute to the late Robin Cook, the foreign secretary in the Blair government which intervened in the Kosovan conflict. “All the British people who supported us in that hard time, that is why I wanted to become British.”
He is leaning towards remain, though. “I worry that the Germans and the French will make all the decisions,” he says. “Where will that leave us?”
But as a Kosovan, does he feel British? What does the bunting, the flags and the sausage rolls mean to him? “I’m here because of the Queen, 100%,” he says. “I love Britain. I am British.”
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This article was amended on 22 June 2016 to replace a photograph which had showed an entirely different Queen’s birthday celebration and to include the fact that Joyce Cracknell stood as a Ukip candidate in the 2014 local election.
