It’s lunchtime on St George’s Day and the Royal pub in Runcorn is a festival of flags, fags and Farage. “I’m sorry,” says Mike Kneale, a painter, as he explains which party he will back in this week’s crucial byelection: “But it’s Nigel Farage.”
The Reform UK leader’s Cheshire cat grin leaps out from billboards and doormats all over this constituency, where his party is odds-on to win its fifth MP and deliver a blow to Keir Starmer. It would be the first time in half a century that Runcorn has elected a non-Labour MP.
Labour won Runcorn and Helsby, on the industrial banks of the River Mersey, with a thumping 14,696-vote majority only 10 months ago. But a drunken assault by the sitting MP Mike Amesbury means its 16th safest seat is up for grabs and the “dogfight” between Starmer’s party and Reform is getting ugly.
“Labour are fucked,” says Kneale, 52, drinking a £1.95 pint of Foster’s beneath a giant St George’s flag. “I’ve been Labour all my life but never, ever again. They’ve done nothing but lie to us.”
On Kneale’s long list of grievances are immigration, the state of the town centre, the leadership of the local council, and cuts to the winter fuel allowance – a big issue in a constituency where one in five people are over 65, bigger than the national share.
“We need to stop the fucking boats. The pensioners need winter fuel allowance back and if you look around the town we’ve got barbers, dodgy cigarette shops, charity shops everywhere. You go try buy a pair of shoes in Runcorn – you can’t!”
Farage’s party has made immigration centre stage in this overwhelmingly white British corner of Cheshire. A Reform leaflet claims “Labour’s candidate welcomes the boats”, alongside a picture of young men crowded on an inflatable dinghy. “Welcome to Runcorn & Helsby,” it adds. “750 illegal boat migrants housed here.”
The latest Home Office figures suggest 345 asylum seekers were being housed in temporary accommodation in the two local authorities that span this constituency – representing 0.37% of the population. Most of those asylum seekers are in hotels such as Daresbury Park, a once-lavish wedding venue that some see as a symbol of local decline.
“It was a really posh hotel at one time,” laments a 68-year-old man, who declines to be named, as he leaves Reform’s makeshift campaign centre in a Runcorn shopping centre.
A retired engineer, he usually voted Labour but was tempted by the hard-right party due to its tougher stance on immigration – “I’m not against legal asylum seekers [but] illegal ones are a different matter” – and because Starmer’s party “hit the pensioners”. He is not altogether sold on Farage, however, disliking his closeness to Donald Trump and his plans for the NHS. “Runcorn may need a change,” he says. “Whether it’s Reform, I don’t know.”
Amid growing signs of a Reform win, the Labour candidate, Karen Shore, has promised to close Daresbury Park to asylum seekers – a tactic described by Zarah Sultana, the former Labour MP who now sits as an independent, as “callous and indefensible”.
At Deja Brew cafe in Runcorn on Tuesday, two days before polling day, Shore admitted regrets over her hotel pledge. “It was not coming from a place of prejudice at all – that’s far from the person I am,” she said, adding: “I accept that the tone of it could’ve been slightly different – and the fact it was exploited by the populists.”
The former teacher and local councillor said Reform’s immigration-focused campaign had “demonise[d] people” to “create fear and scapegoat people”. Asked whether she believed it was racist, she said: “Some of it could be. It’s for them to say whether they’re racist or not.
“But the thing that annoys me most about it is it’s not the experience of local people on the estate, and where there are asylum seekers living there, they actually get along quite well.”
The danger for Labour is that its perceived lurch to the right alienates its own voters while failing to attract those leaning towards Reform.
“Immigrants are not the problem,” says Faiza Ali, 20, selling perfume from a stall in Runcorn Shopping City. Ali says she has been left depressed by the constant stream of “stop the boats” rhetoric on local social media groups. “People that are uneducated about why the UK’s in debt are focusing on the wrong thing … It’s becoming a more racist vibe.”
Fifteen candidates are contesting the first byelection of Starmer’s premiership, but only two have a chance of winning.
With turnout expected to be 15-20% lower than usual, the result will depend as much on Labour’s ability to get out its vote as Reform’s success. The Reform candidate, Sarah Pochin, a former Conservative councillor and local magistrate, reflects a more moderate shade of turquoise than her leader. Three years ago, as mayor of Cheshire East council, she hosted a welcome event for Syrian and Afghan refugees and – unlike most Reform voters – is against the death penalty.
Publicly, Pochin is careful to guard against complacency before Thursday’s poll. She would need a colossal swing to unseat Labour, which won 53% of the vote last year to Reform’s 18%. Her party comes into this contest almost tied with Labour in most national opinion polls but it has by far the most popular leader.
“I’ve never seen a response like it,” says one campaigner stacking leaflets in Reform’s Runcorn HQ, who said the Conservatives were haemorrhaging so much support they could struggle to get 5% of the vote (compared with 16% last year). “Thirty to 50 people a day are coming into the shop,” he adds. “People in really challenging areas are coming out of their houses and giving us the thumbs up.”
Those planning to vote Reform are said to roughly fall into two groups: “those who set their alarm for work in the morning and are angry at those who don’t – and those who don’t”, the campaign official says.
This coalition of workers and workless could be enough to clinch victory if enough Labour voters stay at home.
Not everyone, though, is falling under Farage’s spell. “I think Reform are absolute scumbags,” says Jay, 49, a mature student heading into Savers discount store. “It’s a shame they gain popularity on lies. People just hear things about people coming over illegally and think Reform is going to do something about it.”
Phillip Allen, 80, says he will vote Labour, adding that Starmer’s party is getting the blame for inheriting a mess: “I think voting for Reform is a protest vote.”
In Runcorn Shopping City, an exasperated Janet Spearritt, 75, sums up the mood among many: “I’ve got my postal ballot in here,” she says, gesturing to her handbag. “And I’m in two minds whether to post it or tear it in half.” This disillusionment was not uncommon among voters who spoke to the Guardian – but for Spearritt it cut deep.
“I’ve been a Labour supporter all my life but I hear what they have to say about this business with women and I’m just at a loss.
“I’ve voted all my life because of what women went through. If I don’t post it it’s a wasted vote, and if someone gets in I don’t want to then I might regret it. But who’s worth voting for?”
