Runcorn and Helsby, a constituency tucked away in Cheshire, has been a Labour stronghold since 1983. It’s the 16th safest Labour seat in the country, a redoubt of red in an ever-shifting political landscape. But don’t let the numbers fool you, there’s trouble brewing, and it’s got Reform UK’s fingerprints all over it. More interestingly, it just doesn’t seem to be generating formal interest among Labour’s usually formidable ground campaigning teams. So why on earth not? What is Labour playing at, or more to the point, what is Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff playing at?
Some statistics: 25% of kids in Runcorn live below the poverty line. Worse still, 65% of them have parents who are working. This isn’t just poverty; it’s the kind of grinding, soul-crushing hardship that comes from a system that’s failed the very people Labour claim to champion. For 40 years, Labour have owned this seat, yet the misery lingers. What’s the excuse?
Step forward McSweeney, Labour’s campaign mastermind, a man scarred by the Hartlepool by-election debacle in the spring of 2021. He’s pulling the strings in this Runcorn and Helsby by-election, and his playbook is a strange blend of bluster and retreat. On March 28, Wes Streeting, Shadow Health Secretary, rocked up to Frodsham, yes, the same Frodsham now notorious for ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury’s 3am drunken dust-up with a constituent. Streeting’s mission? To fire the opening salvo in an anti-Reform campaign, zeroing in on Nigel Farage’s musings about rethinking NHS funding.
Let’s be clear: Farage has never once suggested charging for NHS care at the point of delivery. But Labour didn’t let facts get in the way. They rolled out attack ad vans screaming about NHS betrayal and, in a stroke of absurdity, accused Farage of ‘Fighting for Putin’. At the end of March, an email blasted out to Labour members rallied the troops:
The local elections are almost here and we’re fighting a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby on top of that. It’s time for us to show Nigel Farage’s party what Labour’s campaign machine can do. Every voter with local elections this May and every voter in Runcorn and Helsby needs to know about his plans to dismantle our NHS. Farage thinks he’s on a roll, but if we move quickly, he’ll have nothing to smile about on polling day.
Big talk, but where’s the follow-through? Since Streeting’s cameo, Angela Rayner has also visited, but otherwise it’s been tumbleweeds. No Keir Starmer. No Rachel Reeves. Just a handful of Labour students knocking about. For a party with a supposedly fearsome ‘campaign machine’, this is embarrassingly limp. Why the ghosting?
McSweeney’s got bigger fish to fry. He knows the ‘red wall’, those gritty, working-class heartlands, is crumbling. Hartlepool taught him that Labour’s traditional voters aren’t guaranteed anymore. Reform are circling, and Farage’s recent cosying up to the unions, like the GMB, is a warning shot. GMB boss Gary Smith has been vocal, slamming the ‘religion of Net Zero’:
Thousands of jobs are going to go, a community is going to be hollowed out. We’re going to see huge reductions in our carbon emissions, but at what price?
If Reform can harness that anger, Labour are done for, relegated to a rump of public sector unions and latte-sipping uni grads, miles from a majority.
Labour are sitting on a monster majority right now. Losing Runcorn and Helsby, their 16th safest seat, won’t tip the Commons balance. But it’ll scare the living daylights out of Labour MPs, from the front bench to the back. Some are already twitching; ginger groups within the party are pivoting to attack Reform, barely bothering with the Tories on social media. It’s surface-level panic, though. A loss here could force McSweeney to rip up the script: dial back the Net Zero dogma (they’ll never ditch it completely) and ditch the woke posturing.
Rewind to 2014. The Heywood and Middleton by-election saw Labour squeak past UKIP’s John Bickley by 617 votes, UKIP’s share rocketing from 2.6% in 2010 to 38.7%. That win kept Ed Miliband in the saddle. Fast forward to now, and it’s Miliband again, the poster boy for Net Zero zeal and all that alienates the working class, who’s in the crosshairs. If Reform snags Runcorn, and maybe even Doncaster, Miliband’s own patch, his days are numbered, and so is Labour’s current creed.
Runcorn and Helsby could be where Labour’s complacency meets its match. Reform are on the prowl, and the safe seat isn’t so safe anymore. Will Labour wake up, or will Farage’s crew redraw the map? Watch this space – it’s about to get messy.
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