James Ford: The ‘Blackpool Question’ that is at the heart of Conservative woes

James Ford is a public affairs consultant and a former adviser to Boris Johnson when the Mayor of London.

I noticed something rather intriguing whilst listening to the Chancellor’s spending review speech in June. No, not just that the Government’s much-vaunted ‘Growth Mission’ isn’t going well. What piqued my interest was that the Chancellor mentioned Blackpool as frequently as she mentioned London. (Three times a piece for those keeping score).

This equal billing is clearly not about economics. London is a teeming metropolis that leads every other UK region in GDP per capita, foreign direct investment, productivity, and net contribution to the Exchequer. Blackpool, with the best will in the world, is none of these things. It is an iconic seaside resort that has struggled to stave off decline and now battles high levels of deprivation and joblessness. Both may have their own tower but nobody – whether they are a ‘real economist’ or just work in customer service and want to pad their CV – is going to be mistaking the Golden Mile for the Square Mile any time soon. The Chancellor’s emphasis must, therefore, be a political calculation.

Nor is the Chancellor the only Cabinet Minister who is developing a Blackpool obsession. Just two weeks after the Chancellor’s spending review announcement, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was at Blackpool Football Club to launch his NHS reforms. Louise Haigh, during her brief tenure as Transport Secretary, visited Blackpool to talk about potholes last September – the same month that Employment Minister Alison McGovern visited the town pledging to tackle joblessness. It can only be a matter of time before Keir Starmer abseils down Blackpool Tower wearing a ‘Kiss-me-Quick’ hat.

Tempting as it might be to conclude that the Labour Party’s field operations team lacks imagination, I’m minded to think that something more significant is going on: Blackpool has become the new bellwether of contemporary British politics. The town (and its two parliamentary seats) has become pivotal to Labour’s campaign to stay in office at the next election.

Unfortunately for us Conservatives, it is not our shade of blue that Labour fears Blackpool’s constituencies will turn to at the next election. Blackpool is now a key battleground for Labour’s war against Reform UK.

Nigel Farage’s party has surged in the polls in the seaside resort. Whereas the Brexit Party polled just six per cent in Blackpool South in the 2019 election, by the time of the May 2024 by-election, Reform UK secured 17 per cent of the vote (helping to hand the seat to Labour). In the general election that followed a few weeks later, Reform UK came second in the seat with a vote share just under 29 per cent. In by-elections to Blackpool Council, Reform have gained one seat (in Marton) from Labour and helped hand a previously Conservative seat (in Bispham) to Labour. In both cases, the Conservative candidates finished in third place.

Perhaps more significantly in terms of political zeitgeist, Blackpool is now home to Reform UK’s first political members club. This should not be confused with the grander and more famous Reform Club on Pall Mall whose members have included Gladstone, Asquith, and Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. (To the best of my knowledge, the London Reform Club does not serve ‘black pudding baps’ and has never ‘accidentally’ agreed to host an event organised by neo-Nazis – though I’m happy to be corrected if members’ recollections differ).

What is happening in Blackpool should serve as a warning to both Labour and the Conservatives. Labour is right to be alarmed at how quickly the party is losing support in seats that just last year propelled them back into office. However, they are falling into the same trap that the previous Government fell into when it comes to understanding voters’ priorities in towns like Blackpool. Under the Conservatives, Blackpool was arguably the poster child for the Levelling Up agenda. The previous government lavished huge sums of taxpayer cash on Blackpool. There were grand projects galore – the largest Town Deal, a carbon-neutral education campus, full-fibre gigabit broadband, a refurbished conference centre – but the people on the ground were slow to feel any benefit, and certainly the town’s two Conservative MPs saw no benefit at the polls last year.

Labour don’t seem to have realised that this kind of top-down, pork-barrel politics will not stop the rise of Reform UK. No matter how many times Labour ministers mention Blackpool in the Commons or visit the town to cut the ribbon on shiny new buildings commissioned (and paid for) by the last administration, it cannot distract from the very real damage that their economic policies are wreaking in the town. Hospitality, a key employer locally, is being hit hard by the rise in employers NICs and will be squeezed further by the proposed employment rights changes. A controversial ‘asylum hotel’ on the Promenade is driving local anger and, despite years of Whitehall largesse, Blackpool Council has still rung up mountains of debt. Little wonder that voters in Blackpool are already looking elsewhere for opportunities and solutions.

The Conservative Party nationally should be very concerned at how quickly they are being squeezed out of contention in Blackpool politics. Given the unprecedented scale and speed of the collapse in political support for Labour across the UK, why is the official opposition (in both Parliament and on Blackpool Council) not benefitting from it? The town’s newfound love affair with Reform may mean Blackpool is living rent-free in the minds of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves and winning all the spending review name-checks, but Blackpool is not unique. It is the epicentre of a political shift that is happening in countless working-class seats across the country, particularly across the north. That question of why Labour’s failures and losses are not translating into Tory gains (let us call this the ‘Blackpool Question’)– should be living rent-free in Conservative minds too.

In every General Election since 1964 the party which has won Dartford has gone on to form the UK government. In 2029, forecasters would do well to look to Blackpool South instead.