Runcorn and Helsby by-election: Labour candidate Karen Shore on Reform, the NHS, and closing asylum hotels

Karen Shore, Labour’s candidate in the Runcorn and Helsby, is under no illusion who her biggest threat is in the upcoming by-election – Reform.

Since the general election, the party’s popularity has surged while Labour’s has plummeted, leaving the parties neck-to-neck in the polls.

In response, many in Labour now see Farage’s party as their biggest threat – particularly in former industrial heartlands like Runcorn.

Shore is one of them, and sees the election as a two-horse race.

“They came second here in the general election last year. It’s easy when you’re a protest party – or a small party – not in government, to point at things you don’t like.

“But when you’re in power and you have to take those decisions – and I know this from all my years as deputy leader of the council – you’ve got to take responsibility, you’ve got to have broad shoulders, and you’ve got to do it with confidence and courage.”

Closing the asylum hotel

Reform has made immigration a key part of its platform, appealing to white working class voters who feel the Labour party isn’t listening to their concerns.

Shore appears to be listening. In a post that later went viral – after it was picked up by the press – she launched a petition to close a local hotel used by asylum seekers.

She wrote on Facebook: “The last government left behind a broken asylum system, with millions being spent on hotels, whilst evil people in smuggling gangs rake in huge profits.

“That is simply not fair. Labour is fixing the mess and has already removed over 19,000 people who shouldn’t be here. I’ll campaign to close the local asylum hotel.

The post was accompanied by a graphic listing the closure of the hotel as one of her priorities.

‘I’ve spent half my life fighting prejudice and discrimination’

Shore, however, is keen to distance herself from right wing rhetoric, instead arguing that asylum hotels suit neither the asylum seeker nor the local community.

“You will have seen that I’m pledging to close the asylum centre. The context of that is – and I want to pretext what I say really clearly, I’ve spent half my life fighting prejudice and discrimination so this isn’t the place where that’s coming from.

“Where it’s coming from is the fact that the system is broken, and it’s not working for anyone.

“It isn’t working for asylum seekers, who can’t cook, wash their clothes, living on top of each other… It’s not good for them and it’s not good for the community either, because the infrastructure isn’t there to support it and it causes tensions in the community.

“So Labour have committed to closing them, and Labour have committed to solving the asylum problem by processing applications more quickly.”

READ MORE: Runcorn by-election: Disabled aspiring candidate slams opaque snap selection as Labour interviews potential MPs

This was the context behind her post, she said, “not the way it has been reported in some of the right wing press”.

She denied that the post was made to outmanoeuvre Reform on immigration.

“No, it was a decision made because it’s a Labour government commitment, it was in last year’s manifesto.

“Whilst the tone of it could have been slightly better, because it was taken and run with by the right wing media in the way that it was, nonetheless it is Labour’s policy to close them down.

“Like I said, it doesn’t work for either the people trapped in the asylum system or the people that live locally.”

The NHS

As well as pledging to close the asylum hotel, Shore’s campaign is going big on Labour’s efforts to bring down NHS waiting lists.

It’s a key dividing issue between Labour and Reform, with the party going on the offensive over Farage’s stance on NHS funding.

It’s the only issue on a leaflet provided to me by her campaign. The flyer claims “Labour is fixing the NHS”, and adds “two million extra NHS appointments delivered since July”.

On the back it carries a quote from Shore promising to “make sure the NHS is free at the point of need and fight against Nigel Farage’s plan to make you pay”.

Mike Amesbury

Shore’s campaign isn’t happening in a vacuum. The by-election was called after her former colleague MP Mike Amesbury was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison suspended for two years after he assaulted one of his constituents.

Despite his conviction, Amesbury remains popular among Labour activists in the area. On my last trip up a local councillor said their preference was for the former Labour MP to stay in his seat until the next general election.

While Shore acknowledged that Amesbury’s behaviour was “disappointing” she also emphasised his popularity in the area.

“Well obviously what Mike did was disappointing, and I know that Mike has already spoken about that at length.

“I have to say, in these parts, in this area of the constituency it’s not really coming up in a negative way, it’s coming up positively, because he was well-known strong local MP.

“So people, although they are disappointed about what happened, speak about him fondly. Occasionally they might speak about him in the negative but not very often. I don’t think it’s going to influence voter’s decisions, particularly here.”

‘Labour’s had to make some really difficult decisions’

Despite the long run-in from Amesbury’s conviction to his resignation, the process to replace him was fast, with the window for candidate applications opening and closing within the space of one weekend.

“It was a bit of a whirlwind” Shore said.

“But I’m settled now and I’m used to the role that I’m in, so I’m just getting on with it really. That’s what I like to do, just roll my sleeves up and get stuck in.”

She said she decided to run due to her local links – she lives just outside the constituency- and because she knew the area “really well”.

“I just thought there isn’t going to be another opportunity like this, because we weren’t expecting it to come up. So I just went for it, gave it my best shot.”

Shore recognises that the national picture has changed a lot since Labour came to power last July.

“Labour’s had to make some really difficult decisions since it took power, not least because they inherited a situation they weren’t fully expecting – and sometimes that has come up on the door.

“But I think what we have to do is to explain to people that not only what we’re doing now to put things right, to fix the foundations, but what we are pledging to do in the future.”

‘For what it’s worth, it’s not going the right way’

After our interview finished, I joined Shore for a canvassing session.

We visited Dunham-on-the-hill, a small village in Chester that was formerly in the Conservative constituency of Eddisbury until it was amalgamated into Runcorn and Helsby for the 2024 general election.

A staunchly Conservative area, locals are polite to the Labour canvassers on the door, but Shore doesn’t spend long chatting to them.

Her campaign team hope they can convince some of the locals to vote for her as part of an effort to keep Reform out.

At one door, Shore stumbled across some rare Labour voters, a middle-aged couple living in one of the village’s picturesque houses.

The man told her: “For what it’s worth, it’s not going the right way, you’ll have heard that a lot I bet.

“But not so badly that we would consider voting anywhere else.”

I left Shore soon after. There were hundreds more doors to knock, and thousands more voters to win over.

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