Three years on from the 2019 election, Labour can win again in Blackpool South

Three years ago today, I was trudging around the streets of Blackpool – for what would be the final time – to get out the vote on what felt like the wettest day of the general election campaign. The Saturday prior to polling day, I had been mulling over our data with a Labour staffer and it was at that point that I thought the game was up and the seat lost. Whilst it wasn’t a nice feeling, it did at least help me manage my expectations as I prepared for the final week of canvassing.

After hearing the exit poll and after the first few boxes had been opened at the count, it was pretty clear we had lost. The question now was by how many. Given the leadership factor, Brexit and a couple of problematic local issues, my initial fears were that we were looking at a 6,000- to 7,000-vote majority for the Conservative candidate. When all the votes were totted up, we found we had lost by 3,690 votes. Whilst it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, a defeat is still a defeat and it left the people of Blackpool South without Labour representation in Westminster for the first time in 22 years.

Many label the constituency a ‘Red Wall’ seat. I would argue, however, that the town never was one of those areas. In fact, it wasn’t till the 1990s that the party started enjoying its first proper electoral success here. First with taking control of the council and then winning both parliamentary seats in the 1997 landslide. In his 2019 concession speech, Gordon Marsden, who I worked with for six brilliant years, told the now Conservative MP: “I may have been the first Labour MP for Blackpool South, but be assured I won’t be the last.”

In the days and weeks after the election, I thought a lot about where the town in a political context and where Labour in Blackpool went next. Even though the local party now had no representation in parliament, there still was a Labour-run council, which provided the party with a strong base to work from. That said, knowing the characteristics of the town, the difficulty in engaging with voters, especially in the more transient and deprived areas, and the novelty of having a different MP for the first time in almost a generation, I anticipated difficult times ahead.

Those fears were confirmed to me in a council by-election in May 2021 when the Conservatives, still with the Boris Johnson and Brexit momentum behind them, held their Highfield ward seat with 54% of the vote. For those outside of Blackpool politics, the ward has always been a bellwether area. Since 2011, both the Tories and Labour have had to settle for a share of the spoils with a seat apiece in the two-member ward. Had that type of result been played out across the constituency, I was told you would have been looking at a majority in the region of 9,000 for the Conservative Party – a terrifying prospect.

18 months on, the electoral calculus website now says Labour have a 93% chance of winning back Blackpool South. This was the website that also predicted, back in 2015, us winning our first ever council seat in the Squires Gate ward – which we then did by two votes.

It has been an astonishing turnaround with the Conservative incumbent now well and truly on the back foot. In the neighbouring Blackpool North and Cleveleys seat, Labour took a seat back from the Tories last month; like the Highfield ward, this is another bellwether area. Whilst the electoral calculus is at present predicting quite emphatically that Blackpool South will turn back red, I know from my time as the campaign coordinator for the 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections, that it won’t be as straightforward as what the pollsters are currently saying.

Engaging with voters is always one of the biggest challenges the party faces in Blackpool. In areas such as South Shore and Revoe, deprivation levels are some of the highest in the country and life expectancy for men among the lowest. Men in South Kensington in London, for example, can expect to live three decades longer than those in these parts of Blackpool.

Poverty and health inequality issues are not new ones for the area, but they have no doubt been worsened by 12 years of Tory austerity, which has not just cut the council’s budget but also left local schools, policing and health services all struggling. The problem we often faced in Blackpool was convincing those who most needed a Labour government, as a route out of poverty and to a better life, to go out and vote Labour. Voter apathy is a problem across the country, but in Blackpool it is more so and worryingly entrenched into the minds of many. They don’t see politics as working for them. At the last election, the turnout was 67.3% across the UK, but in Blackpool South it was 56.8% – one of the lowest across the North West and the country and as a whole.

At some point next year, I expect the Blackpool South Constituency Labour Party to begin the process of selecting its next parliamentary candidate. This will be a brand new process for many of the members up there. The last time they went through this would have been in the mid-1990s when Gordon was selected to contest the seat for the second successive time for the 1997 election.

Of course, the outcome of Blackpool South at the next election will be largely dictated by national events – coming down to the choice between a Keir Starmer Labour government or a Rishi Sunak Tory government. But, just as we hear about it in elite level sport, the marginal gains here will matter more than most.

One of Gordon’s biggest strengths as the MP was his ability to work with people of different political persuasions and backgrounds. This was most evident through the work he did with the late Conservative councillor Peter Callow, the then leader of Blackpool Council, to secure the long-term future of the iconic tower and the Winter Gardens back in 2010. It’s why we believe that he was able to hold his seat with small majorities in the 2010, 2015 and 2017 elections when the national political picture was against Labour.

Whoever is given the privilege – and it will be a privilege because, as Gordon used to say, “Blackpool isn’t just some made up place created by the Boundary Commission” – the next Labour candidate must continue in them same traditions as he did, and be a representative for everyone.

At the next election, I don’t expect Labour to win the seat back with a 11,000-plus majority as we did 25 years ago. I suspect it will be a tight affair, more like that of the results since 2010. That’s why in the weeks and months ahead, getting all the little details will matter. If they do, they will take the seat back at the first time of asking – something that if you had asked was possible three years ago, after the election count at the sports centre in Blackpool, I would have said probably not.

Is it possible? Certainly. Is it probable? If we work with the efforts and qualities we know that we have, I believe so. Blackpool is a very special town and it’s people have particular needs – they deserve so much better than the Tory cuts, chicanery and financial favours for their friends as we’ve seen for the past 12 years.