Can independent candidates pose a threat to Labour?

Nigel Farage says that Britain is ready for a ‘revolt’, and he’s not the only candidate in this election committed to an uprising. The biggest threat to Keir Starmer is coming not from the Tories or the Lib Dems… but from left-wing insurgents.

In Bristol Central, Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow culture secretary, could lose to the Greens. In Ashton-under-Lyne, Angela Rayner’s seat, George Galloway’s Workers party is trying to cause trouble. In the last election, Rayner had the lowest vote share of any Labour candidate there since 1931, but was still re-elected with a majority of more than 4,000. Galloway wants this apathetic town to finally unseat Labour’s deputy leader.

Spend a Saturday afternoon in the town’s market and you’ll see no ordinary resident cares about the election. ‘No thanks’, ‘I’m not one for voting’, ‘I think they’re all…’ are typical responses. Jimmy, a florist, immigrated to Ashton-under-Lyne from Nairobi when he was seven. ‘I’m 62 now, and I’m not arsed about voting. Maybe I’ll vote National Front. They might do something.’ Down a pub by the station, people aren’t thinking about 4 July either. An old man called Nigel is kung-fu fighting thin air by the bar. ‘I’m like Bruce Lee,’ he says. ‘Do you know Bruce Lee?’

Most say that Rayner has done nothing to stop the town’s decline. The town hall has been closed for nine years for refurbishments that still haven’t started. Many of the stalls at the market are shuttered. Sellers start leaving after lunch because there are so few customers.

The campaign HQ of Galloway’s candidate, Aroma Hassan, is a desk in the office of a town-centre estate agent. There she outlines Britain’s problems: ‘We’re working more than we’ve ever worked. We’re paying more taxes than we’ve ever paid. We’re seeing sections of our NHS privatised under our noses.