The Cholmondeley Arms is set just off the main road of the quaint, red-bricked market town of Frodsham. Not that this watering hole is much of a tranquil escape: it’s lavishly draped in Union Jacks and VE day memorabilia and boasts a spacious beer garden out the back. It doesn’t serve food and features a healthy crowd of regulars sat by the bar. It plays clubland classics from 11am to 2am, when it ejects its clientele.
Ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury should be able to testify to that, given this is the pub he stayed at ‘til closing last year before he decided to knock one of his constituents for six. His subsequent suspension and suspended sentence resulted in the first parliamentary by-election of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership and Friday morning’s Runcorn and Helsby by-election result conferred a similar – while not quite as physically bruising – injury to Labour. Amesbury’s was a safe seat at the July election: the Yorkshire-born man won 52 per cent of the vote, leaving Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in a distant second place. But just ten months into Labour rule, this vote demonstrated just how fed-up voters have got with the party they voted in.
Despite Amesbury’s custom, the pub’s barman didn’t back Labour this time around. In fact, he didn’t even vote. ‘The state of politics these days,’ he sighed, ‘I don’t know who I’d vote for. I don’t really care.’ His apathy was reflected across the constituency. ‘They’re all as bad as each other,’ a small business owner informed me. ‘I don’t get involved with politics,’ an elderly constituent sniffed. Reform isn’t unaware of this problem either: after the count on Friday morning, Farage spoke of the erosion of trust in mainstream politicians – but insisted the support that had registered for his party was not simply about sending a message to the Tories or Labour. ‘A protest vote means you stick two fingers up – and that doesn’t motivate people to turn out in large numbers,’ the Reform leader told journalists. ‘We are not a protest party, even though there is much to protest about. No. The vibe, the whole vibe with reform UK is, you know what, we can turn this country around.’
The atmosphere in the Reform camp at the declaration was jubilant; the young men in turquoise ties who’d spent much of the night pacing around the hall and running frantic hands through their hair let out a collective sigh of relief moments before the result was officially revealed. A gleeful Farage exchanged a knowing smile with party chairman Zia Yusuf before the returning officer announced Reform had clinched the win by just six votes, receiving over 38 per cent of the vote share. But while the atmosphere among Reform supporters inside the hall was upbeat, the party still has much to prove to Runcorn and Helsby’s constituents.
‘I voted for Reform,’ John, a DIY shop-owner nodded at me. ‘Anyone’s better than Labour,’ his friend Derek – a lifelong Conservative who has recently switched allegiance to Farage’s group – agreed. There’s certainly no love lost over Amesbury, who both men indicated they knew to some degree. What did they make of him? ‘He’s… Mike, I suppose. If I had been in his position, I wouldn’t have been out drinking until 3am,’ John shrugged. ‘The less said about him the better,’ Derek added, somewhat ominously.
The pair cited Reform’s stance on immigration as a key pull factor for them this time around, lamenting the increasing migration figures and what they view as Labour’s ineffectual response to them: ‘All they want to do is build more houses for the people coming into the country. What about the people here already?’ But while Farage secured their votes this time around, he can’t take their support for granted in a general election. ‘I’m not sure I’d vote Reform in a national election,’ John admitted. ‘I’ve yet to see them deliver on anything they’ve promised. I’m not sure, yet, that I’d want to see them run the country.’ The sentiment was shared by others in the constituency’s ‘anti-Labour’ contingency – while Reform’s anti-establishment rhetoric draws people in, there is a prevailing distrust of politicians in general which has made voters increasingly cynical about the future.
Farage is aware of this, too. Recalling his answer to an interview with Sky News ahead of polling day, in which he confessed his biggest fear was ensuring his party would actually deliver on its promises, he admitted to reporters: ‘I’m concerned because the general feeling out there, about two-thirds of the British public, think Britain is broken, it’s not working. But, regardless of who you vote for, either at local or national level, nothing ever changes… We’ve got a lot to do – but it is difficult to believe we can do worse than what’s been there.’ Now, he has the chance.
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