There’s a pub at the end of Margot James’s street called The Labour in Vain. As the Tory candidate for Stourbridge, she can only hope that it serves as a prediction for next Thursday.
All of the numbers seem to point to victory for the Conservatives in this marginal West Midlands constituency, the British glassmaking capital whose famous residents have included the Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and the snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan. The town, part of Dudley, was also the home of Fiona Butler, whose bottom graced the walls of millions of students in the Athena poster Tennis Girl.
Ms James, a self-made millionaire and the first openly lesbian MP in her party, won a majority of 6,694 in 2015, up from 5,164 in 2010. As a Tory, she might reasonably be expected to pick up more votes from the 7,774 who voted for Ukip last time — but there is one snag: Ms James was a Remainer; ardently so, in a constituency that emphatically voted to leave the EU. Turnout was high and two thirds wanted out.
So the candidate who described Europe as carrying “a torch for freedom across the world” has undergone a Damascene conversion.
Sitting in a café near her home, Ms James, 59, declined to answer whether she wished that the EU referendum had never taken place. “I’m not really prepared to go back over that ground,” she said. “We’ve moved on. The questions are different now.”
Advertisement
She said that the result had been painful for her but that there was no going back. “It’s been easier for me to adapt than some of my colleagues. Everyone’s moved on, myself included, so the question now is how do we get the best deal?”
The daughter of a lorry driver who became a haulage entrepreneur, she said the summer break had allowed her to put the unexpected result into perspective. “I’ll tell you what made things easier: I do understand why a lot of people voted in the way they did. I very much agreed with what the prime minister said when she took office. People didn’t feel like they had a stake in the economy, that globalisation had passed them by. I felt that gave me a new lease of . . . a mission to re-engage people in the political process.”
Her main rival is Pete Lowe, 48, a former leader of Dudley council, who as Labour’s candidate came second to Ms James in 2015. He also voted Remain, although he was “more on the fence” about the issue than his rival. He believes that some of the Ukip vote will come his way, although he was far from bullish about his chances of taking the seat. His goal has changed from “retaining as much of the Labour Party vote as we could” to being “fairly confident that the Labour vote is going to top what we got in 2015”. In Stourbridge, which was Labour between 1997 and 2010, his party is playing the long game.
Residents who spoke to The Times this week cared little about how candidates campaigned during the referendum. At the Ruskin Glass Centre, which hosts Britain’s largest glass-making festival, craftsmen working in their studios were looking at the bigger picture. Nick Gritton, 57, a glass decorator with a proud Black Country accent, said that he was worried about Labour’s spending promises. “I won’t be going Labour,” he said. “My personal point of view is from the last time Labour was in power they seemed to give it all away and then the Conservatives have had to build it all back up again.”
Richard Lamming, 59, a colleague in a nearby studio, said that he trusted the Tories to get on with the job. “I’ve flirted quite a lot [in my voting]. Monster Raving Loony, Liberal, Conservative. But I’m not a Labour man.”
Advertisement
At the tennis courts at Mary Stevens Park, Ella Gardiner, 37, a vintage events organiser, was resolute in her loyalty to Labour, which she thought could deliver on Brexit. “I think that Jeremy Corbyn will be a brilliant negotiator,” she said.
Claire White, 44, said that she had been a lifelong Tory voter, but she did like the Labour promise to abolish tuition fees. “I’m not really into it all,” she said. “You’ve got to enjoy life.”