Echo Comment on Reform’s historic win on Durham County Council
Although the scale of the victory is surprising, the direction of travel is not. Many Durham voters have a traditional view of the world.
They understand, rightly or wrongly, the correlation between the arrival of thousands of migrants and the shortage of dentists or hospital appointments or houses – and Labour’s only solution seems to be speeding up the planning process so even more houses can be built on green fields people would like to protect.
They believe in basic fairness – and the removal of all pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and the proposed targeting of people on benefits fall short of that.
They are angry because of despair – why are our roads so potholed? – but they are also proud of their area and, at heart, they are positive. That’s why Boris Johnson’s infectious enthusiasm enticed so many Durham voters away from Labour in 2019.
Nigel Farage, who has slid markedly to the left in a few short weeks to win them over, has a similar razzamatazz. He says Britain is broken, but it can be fixed, whereas Mr Starmer spent months saying had bad things were and how big the black hole was and how worse things were going to become. Who’d vote for that?
But Mr Johnson let the Red Wall down so badly the Tories are still disastrously toxic, and if we look to the US, no one can say that things are going brilliantly for Mr Farage’s inspiration, Donald Trump.
The proof of the pudding is in delivery. Can Reform make Durham great again? Can they even run it competently?
Durham voters have given Reform a massive opportunity to show they are more than a party of protest: if they can take it, it could put them on a path to winning the next general election.