“We were all immigrants here once”: Is the ‘red island’ of Milton Keynes under threat from Reform?

It’s Jennie Lee’s first day greeting arrivals at Milton Keynes Central. Only hours earlier, Labour councillors had gathered to unveil a statue of the pioneering minister, who under Harold Wilson established the Open University in the city in 1969. 

Now, with only weeks to go until the local elections on May 7, Lee’s fibreglass gaze is perhaps an apt reminder to travellers of the Labour roots of one of England’s most famous “new towns”.

That’s because Nigel Farage has also set his eyes firmly on Milton Keynes, where two years ago Labour won an outright majority on the council for the first time in 24 years and where there are currently no Reform councillors.

Only a few days earlier on March 17, the Reform UK bandwagon had rolled into town, taking over Arena MK for the night. 

The threat feels dangerously close too. Last year, nearby councils in West and North Northamptonshire fell under Reform control. So how much is Milton Keynes, dubbed a “little red island” by one local councillor, under threat from the hard-right.

READ MORE: ‘The University of the Air – celebrating 60 years of Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee’s vision’

If Reform is going to win seats anywhere, it’ll be in Woughton, one of the most deprived parts of the city.

For decades one of the party’s strongest wards, it’s seen as top of the list for Farage’s party, with Reform hoping to boost the turnout of non-voters in the area, where in 2024 only 19 per cent came out on polling day.

Donna Fuller, who has been a councillor there since 2021 and is standing again in May, says her experience so far on doorsteps isn’t as clear cut.

She has a simple message for voters who raise Reform talking points on immigration and asylum seekers. “We were all immigrants to Milton Keynes once, because we all came from somewhere else, and we all came here for a better life.”

We’re meeting on a muddy building site in Netherfield, decked out in hard hats and hi-vis jackets, where work has begun on 66 new council homes. Milton Keynes is one of England’s fastest growing cities, with one of the best records on affordable housing delivery in the country.

There’s also a highly rated adult social care system and weekly bin collections, two issues that, alongside the state of the roads in a largely car-dependent city, top the list of residents’ concerns.

It’s this record that Labour councillors are asking voters to judge them on, in a city that has transformed in the last decade from the butt of jokes about concrete cows to bidding to become city of culture in 2029.

There is also the small matter of a planned expansion of 40,000 homes under the government’s new towns programme.

Even if some of the dissatisfaction with Keir Starmer and the government inevitably does come up on doorsteps, senior Labour figures are not reporting the same levels of vitriol or hostility as elsewhere.

Still, at one door campaigners canvass in Wolverton, in the north-west of the city, one voter brands Starmer a “liar”, while also admitting they didn’t vote at the last election.

There is an attitude, says Fuller, of “I’m just going to vote Reform because it’s the sexy thing to do at the moment and my mate’s going to do it”.

“People are very disillusioned and they’re very disappointed and that’s a difficult one. It’s a bit like turning around the Titanic – slow and painful.”

Majority

The stakes are higher this time around in Milton Keynes too. A Boundary Commission review has increased the number of local representatives from 57 to 60, but it also means that every one of Labour’s 30 council seats is now up for re-election.

Overnight, it’s possible that the entire electoral landscape in the city could shift. One Labour insider in the city suggested that a good result for the party would be 24 or 25 seats, but it could fall as low as 19 or 20.

Chris Curtis, who won Milton Keynes North in 2024, told LabourList: “We have to really ramp it up.”

The party had a good general election across the three local constituencies, with Calum Anderson also winning in Buckingham and Bletchley and Emily Darlington posting a 7,000 majority in Milton Keynes Central.

Reform finished third in each contest behind the Tories, but most local Labour figures expect that to be reversed on May 7. It’s even possible that Reform could form the second largest bloc, overtaking the Liberal Democrats, who currently have 18 councillors.

Curtis says: “People obviously split their votes and things like that because they feel like they can. One of the extra difficult arguments you have to make is actually what the negative consequences of that can be.

“You might think that you can give two votes to Labour and one to the Greens but actually, what that can end up doing is letting the Reform councilor in through the back door.”

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There is a strong possibility that Labour could lose its majority, which might mean a return to the “progressive coalition” of 2021-2024 with the Lib Dems.

But what of the Green Party, fresh off a historic win in Gorton and Denton? Zack Polanski’s party has never won a seat on Milton Keynes council and for the first time is actively leafleting Wolverton, a village-like corner of the city home to a growing number of young families and professionals, within easy commuting distance of London.

There is also a chance it, or Reform, could sneak a seat in Olney, a traditionally Tory ward where Labour’s councillor is standing down.

Still, the Labour leadership in Milton Keynes insist that the real danger is Green candidates splitting the vote, rather than winning a swathe of seats. 

Lauren Townsend, the deputy leader of the city council, believes a strong record of delivery should help insulate the local party from some of the national malaise afflicting Labour.

“In Milton Keynes, things genuinely are better than in other places,” says Townsend, who is tipped to take over from long-serving leader Pete Marland when he retires in May.

She’s preparing to set off on her latest leaflet and letter drop. For the next few weeks, thousands of letters will tell voters they have the “lowest council tax in the region” as well as “a pothole filled every 10 minutes”. 

“It should be a really easy argument to make, but we live in weird times, don’t we?

“It will always be more difficult to fight a campaign as the incumbent than it is to fight as the opposition,” says Townsend. 

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