London’s neighboring county Essex is turning red

Bethany Elliott is a freelance journalist and is published in Unherd, the Critic, the Fence and the Daily Mash. She’s a regular contributor to BBC radio and television.

When Steven Norris was the Conservative MP for Epping Forest in the English county of Essex between 1988 and 1997, his constituents frequently reassured him of their steadfast support for the blue party.

“Don’t worry,” he recalled them saying. “We’d elect a monkey with a blue ribbon around his neck.”

“It’s the kind of really elevating thing you want to hear,” he deadpanned. “Of course, they don’t care who the MP is, provided they’re a Tory.”

Those warm words to Norris haven’t been the only confirmation of Essex’s enduring loyalty to the Conservative Party either. The county hasn’t had a Labour MP since 2010 and has elected only Tory MPs since 2017.

But will this finally change?

It may seem surprising that the region containing Jaywick — often rated the poorest place in Britain — would consistently elect a party known for privilege, and that those most in need of public services would knowingly vote to slash them. However, the foundations of this support were laid long ago, after a post-World War II exodus from the nearby East End of London.

“Most are people whose families came from the East End. This isn’t where billionaires live; this is often first-generation new money generated by hard work in basic trades or high street businesses — where people made some money, their kids made even more money, and they found themselves able to buy a place,” Norris explained.

Disturbed by trade union power and strikes, and attracted by then Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher’s promises of low taxes and sales of council houses to tenants, working-class voters in Essex began turning from their parents’ instinctive Labour support in the 1970s and 1980s. In turn, they often enjoyed lucrative careers in the capital’s financial boom under Thatcher.

“In parts of the U.K. where the working-class lived next to the factory, docks or coal mines, the trade unions provided links between individual working-class people and Labour,” said John Bartle, a professor of government at Essex University. “In most of the south, where the working-class were more geographically dispersed, those forces were less strong, and the Tories were able to attract working-class voters.”

Seventy-three-year-old retiree Susan of Southend-on-Sea recalled: “We were raised that [if] you were working class, you voted Labour. I first voted Conservative in 1983 when my husband said, ‘I don’t know why you vote Labour — you’re a full-blown capitalist.’”

“I’d lived through miners’ strikes, reading by candlelight when the electricity went off, and I associate Labour with the risk of unions. Thatcher took control of the unions, and I respected that because they were impeding the economic progress of the country,” she said.

The county hasn’t had a Labour MP since 2010 and has elected only Tory MPs since 2017. | Oli Scarff/Getty Images

And since then, the county’s support for the Conservatives has held strong. Even during Labour’s 1997 landslide victory, 10 of Essex’s 17 constituencies voted Tory.  

According to Rebecca Harris, the Conservative MP for Castle Point since 2010, this is because “the Conservative Party has always been the party of aspirational people who work hard.” Norris, meanwhile, recalled his constituents saying: “I vote Tory for tax.” And more recently, there was also the matter of Brexit to consider. With two of the U.K.’s most pro-Brexit constituencies located in Essex, then Conservative leader Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” messaging in 2019 won the party the entire county and a higher percentage of the vote.

But in July’s general election, even this bastion of working-class Toryism looks imperiled.

Five Essex Conservative MPs chose not to run. And Andrew Hawkins of polling consultancy Whitestone Insight predicted that “of the 18 Essex seats, the Conservatives are on track to lose 11, with 9 going to Labour and one each going to the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. Home Secretary James Cleverly is the potential victim of a Labour landslide.”

“Issues such as immigration, the cost-of-living crisis, the high tax burden and the National Health Service waiting lists are felt particularly acutely”, Hawkins noted.

With 22 percent of Essex residents over the age of 65, the NHS in particular is a perennial concern. Eighty-six-year-old retired factory worker Ruby lives in Rayleigh and is switching from Tory to Labour: “I worked all my life, but I hear about friends waiting in hospital corridors because there aren’t beds. You can’t see a doctor,” she said.

Another recurring theme is the economy — specifically, ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss’ 2022 “mini-budget.” Its consequences were anything but mini for aspirational Essex voters still struggling with higher mortgage repayments, shocked to see what they considered the party of economic competence and low taxation plunging the country into instability.

 “Liz Truss was a lunatic and needed to be put back in the asylum,” said 58-year-old bank employee Darren. “I’m voting Labour, which I don’t usually do, but I’m seeing people suffer financially, and I think Starmer’s very pragmatic and will do a safe job.”

Plus, following Jeremy Corbyn’s departure as Labour leader and the defense pledges of his successor Keir Starmer, Essex voters feel reassured on national security. “They can now vote Labour without fearing letting a left-wing and apparently unpatriotic party into power,” said Bartle.

Moreover, there’s the populist Reform UK party, which is challenging the Tories for the right-wing vote in Essex. Its leader Nigel Farage is contesting the Essex seat of Clacton in his eighth attempt to become an MP. Clearly the eighth time is the charm, as Hawkins is now predicting he will get elected.

Reform’s pledges to reduce net migration to zero and raise the personal allowance for income tax to £20,000 a year may appeal in Clacton — a lower-income constituency that voted for Brexit by 70 percent and previously elected Brexiteer MP Douglas Carswell.

The party’s candidate for Castle Point, Keiron McGill, said he’d voted Conservative in 2019 himself, to “close the Brexit chapter.” Yet, after disagreeing with Covid-19 restrictions and “how badly Brexit had been handled,” he found himself “politically homeless.” “When I read [Reform’s] proposals, it felt like a breath of fresh air,” he said.

And Reform’s lure will likely enable Labour gains across the county by splitting the conservative vote. “Reform is the big factor” in Labour claiming Essex seats, Hawkins advised.

Given their slipping hold on Essex, what strengths can Tory candidates still play upon? Pro-Brexit Susan, for example, will still vote Conservative due to Labour’s intention to strengthen ties with the EU.

Then there’s always the trusty matter of taxes. Were Norris campaigning, he’d appeal to the wallets of wavering voters: “With Labour, you know you’re going to end up paying a lot more tax. So, just think about that when it comes to polling day. Your hand might hover over the Tories but, in the end, they’re the least worst,” he’d say.

But would that be enough to stop Essex turning red?