Voters in Britain’s ‘Brexit capital’ Stoke-on-Trent ready to give Labour and Corbyn bloody nose and elect Ukip’s Paul Nuttall in by-election next week
The constituency has been Labour's safest since its creation in 1950, but with 69 per cent of voters choosing to leave the EU many are predicting a UKIP win
BRITAIN’S “Brexit capital” could be on the brink of giving Jeremy Corbyn a bloody nose, embarrassing him and Labour at the polls.
The people of Stoke-on-Trent showed their strength of feeling when 69 per cent voted to leave the EU in June last year.
Now voters in the Stoke Central constituency, the safest of Labour seats since its creation in 1950, may help the Party’s embattled leader “sign his resignation letter” at a critical by-election.
Even a marginal Labour victory would signal humiliation for Corbyn. This is a seat where 20 years ago Labour boasted a 20,000 majority.
On Thursday they will defend a flimsy 5,000 advantage, with many voters torn between them and Ukip.
Many in the Staffordshire city, population 250,000 and once famed for its “pits and pots” industries, are also citing the unlikely win by US President Donald Trump as an inspiration that could oust Labour in favour of Ukip on Thursday.
Former pottery worker Kevin James, 50, told The Sun on Sunday: “To many people up here, Jeremy Corbyn is a bit of a joke figure.
“His politics seem very London-centric and people might find that hard to relate to in Stoke.”
Another local, Mike Carp, 67, said: “Labour has lost its way here and lost the faith of the people. I think they’ll get a shock and lose for the first time ever.
“Stoke is a place of industry, people are much more in tune with Trump’s words saying ‘American goods for Americans’.
We want British goods for Brits. It supports our dwindling industries and keeps people in jobs.”
Mike, a sales director at a lift manufacturer in the city, added: “People have seen the Brexit victory and the Trump win and realised change is possible.
"The people of Stoke will sign Jeremy Corbyn’s resignation for him by booting Labour out at the by-election.”
Corbyn has faced calls to quit after 52 Labour MPs — including 13 frontbenchers — defied his order to back Brexit in a Commons vote on triggering Article 50.
It led to the resignation of key left-wing ally and shadow business secretary Clive Lewis. Corbyn was dealt a further blow last Friday when aide Simon Fletcher quit over Labour’s direction under him.
Now the Stoke Central vote — and another in Labour stronghold Copeland, Cumbria, on the same day — will prove pivotal to his hold on the leadership.
Outgoing MP Tristram Hunt quit in January to be director of London’s V&A Museum.
Bookies have Labour as slight favourites at 4/7, with Ukip at 13/8.
But Ukip, which came second with 22.7 per cent of the vote in the 2015 General Election to Labour’s 39.3 per cent, have parachuted in new leader Paul Nuttall as a candidate to snatch a win.
However, his campaign was mired in controversy last week when the Bootle-born politician was forced to admit claims that he lost “close personal friends” in the Hillsborough tragedy were not true.
In the centre of Hanley, one of the original six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent, Ukip has hired the site of a former bakery as an HQ.
On the street outside, barrister Tariq Mahmood, a former Labour member who has lived in Stoke all his life, told how he will vote Ukip on Thursday — and has even joined the party as a campaigner.
He said: “Ten years ago it was taken for granted that every single Asian voter on a council estate would vote Labour. I certainly did.
“Ukip is listening to Muslims here, which is more than Labour is doing. Labour think it’s a safe seat but nobody can relate to Corbyn, he’s in a London bubble.
“What does he know about the struggles here? We feel let down by Labour. I’ll be voting Ukip, like many other former Labour voters.”
The struggles in Stoke are many. Just 50 years ago the city boasted 2,000 pot banks making ceramics including mugs and plates for the world. The industry employed more than 70,000.
Now just 47 pot banks exist, employing 10,000, the abandoned bottle oven chimneys a sad reminder of a city in decline.
Stoke’s workforce is one of the lowest paid and least skilled in the UK. Across the city, employment is just 69 per cent, six per cent lower than the national average.
The average wage is £428 a week, compared with £509 nationally.
All of this contributed to Stoke voting 69.5 per cent in favour of Britain leaving the EU — more than any other city.
Labour’s candidate on Thursday, Gareth Snell, voted Remain in the referendum and branded Brexit a “massive pile of s**t”.
Next to a statue of footballing legend Sir Stanley Matthews in the heart of Hanley’s shops, Kevin James now sells local favourite oatcakes from a small van with wife Julie, 54.
He said: “I was made redundant from Royal Doulton when it closed 11 years ago after 25 years service. Labour were in charge and no industry came into the town to replace it.
“I used my redundancy pay and started selling oatcakes.
“I speak to hundreds of people a day and Brexit has given people real belief Ukip will win here.
“At the moment 20 out of the 44 people on the local council are Labour. They have become too arrogant and assume they’ll win every time.
“People think everyone voted Brexit here because of immigration, but it was a rebellion against the status quo — we might see that at the by-election.”
He added of Nuttall’s difficult week: “I don’t think it will change people’s minds. People have simply said that they can’t bring themselves to vote for Labour.”
It is not just long-term Stoke residents predicting a surprise Ukip win. On the outskirts of Hanley is the studio of ceramics designer Reiko Kaneko, who moved from London in 2012 to be nearer pottery manufacturers.
The 34-year-old, who is half Japanese and produces designer items for stores including posh London shop Fortnum & Mason, said: “Lots of people I speak to here seem to be ready for that change.
“They’ve been let down by successive governments.
“Energy prices have got more expensive to fire the bottle ovens and the pottery industry is slipping away. It is a challenging time for our industry, with a lot of Chinese imports.
“People here are very proud of what they do, they always look at the bottom of their plates before meals to check it’s made locally.
“They’re thinking along the same lines as the Trump fans in America — they want the products made in this country put before imports.”
Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, a close ally of the US leader, said a victory in Stoke Central could “be the triple” for the party, on the back of Brexit and Trump.
Earlier this month Stoke City’s US-born footballer Geoff Cameron came out in support of Trump’s controversial travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. And talk is rife of the President’s election victory influencing the polls here.
Newsagent Ben Witton, 27, who runs SuperShop in Hanley, said: “I don’t agree with the travel ban but there’s no doubt people think that if Americans can have someone saying these things then why can’t we have a voice.”
Alison Gardner, 22, a graduate who has just moved to Stoke from Hereford for work, said: “I will vote Labour, it is understandable that people here may have got sick of constant decline but I don’t think Ukip will bring positive change.”
Next to the Ukip HQ, Peter Brassington’s family has run a shoe-making business for 116 years.
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Peter, 50, said: “I won’t vote Labour or Ukip. If Paul Nuttall loses he will move to the next seat he can win. I’m not sure he knows what Stoke people need.
"Prices in the shoe trade have gone up since Brexit but I don’t think that’s a reason for a knee-jerk reaction to vote for Ukip.”
The by-election has divided opinion in Stoke Central, where there was only a 50 per cent turnout two years ago from the population of 62,000.
Student Molly Grainger, 22, and, Andy Briggs, 28, a bar manager, said their families are torn over the vote.
Molly said: “People will vote because Brexit and Trump show you can make a difference. I’ll be voting Labour though. Ukip would be a disaster for the area.”
Andy added: “Half my family have fallen out about who to vote for. People who have always voted Labour in my family will go Ukip this time.
“You’ll find a lot of people who have not voted here will come out for Ukip. It will be a reaction to how we’ve had 70 years of Labour and decline and that people here might struggle to relate to Corbyn.
“If Labour lose it will be the final nail in Corbyn’s leadership coffin.”