Battleground Yorkshire: Losing Rother Valley would set 100 years of change

An ex-mining community represented by a Labour ex-coal industry worker, it was one of the best examples of why the last election was something unprecedented in the type of seats that the Conservatives were able to win.

The winning of this seat, turning it blue for the first time in a century, and many others like it across the North was heralded as the complete redrawing of the electoral map for British politics.

It was meant to be the point that communities in the North which had resisted the lure of Conservatism for decades finally succumbed to the idea that their Labour MP wasn’t going to bring them the change that they needed.

Some of this was down to Brexit, voted for locally, frustrated nationally, until Boris Johnson offered a route to its completion no matter the cost.

Boris Johnson’s presumed decade in power was built on the idea that places like Rother Valley had not only voted Conservative, but would now become Conservative.

Under the most recent MRP poll of Yorkshire’s constituencies for this election, Labour will return with a majority in the seat of around 20 points, the highest in the seat for 20 years.

Five years is a long time in politics, but often not long enough to get anything done in the UK.

Levelling Up is perhaps the biggest example of this recently.

The project was meant to be long-term, not a one-term operation as it has seemingly ended up being.

It was one the greatest tools that Boris Johnson had of turning a generational breaking of party lines in the mind of much of the electorate into something more permanent.

The calculation was simple: if an area feels neglected by one party for a century, then, if you can deliver in a decade, you would potentially have these Northern seats for a very long time.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post before the current general election was called this week, Alex Stafford said that felt that voters will reward the work that his party, locally and nationally, has done in the seat.

“I believe that's how it should be, people should always vote for who they think is best for them, their family, their communities, and country, rather than something because their father or grandfather voted a certain way,” he says.

“Rother Valley is a bit of an outlier in a positive way. In the local elections, we ran the numbers, and out of all of the Conservative marginal seats, in the top 50, only five Conservative seats remain, and one of them is Rother Valley.”

On the doorstep, however, things have moved on a long way from 2019, with Tory candidates having to campaign on wildly different priorities than half a decade ago.

“Let's be honest, in 2019, the biggest conversation in town was Brexit, and the second biggest one was Jeremy Corbyn,” says Mr Stafford.

“I think a third main conversation was Boris Johnson, generally at the time liked by the population, but not just for him, but also for what he promised. And one of those big things was that sort of buzzword of “Levelling Up”.

“I wouldn't use the buzzword necessarily, but Levelling Up, improving the area, or getting it better is still the number one topic of conversation.”

Rother Valley has seen a whole swathe of various pots of funding go its way under the Conservatives, from high streets and developments to transport links.

Some of the work on these will only begin later this year, a problem shared by Tory MPs up and down the land.

If “change” is the winning mantra of this election, then people need to see it happen under the Conservatives to ram home the idea that it was their doing.

If Levelling Up projects start being built and completed in the first term of a Labour government then the money spent by the Tories to win political capital is not only wasted, but actively helping Labour make a case that they have both promised and delivered change.

The double-edged sword of Boris Johnson’s flagship policy could see Labour reap the rewards in places like Rother Valley in Government.

People do not currently believe Rishi Sunak when he says “things are getting better and now back to normal” because they do not see it and they do not feel it.

Give it another five years of town centre improvements, improved transport links, community centres and leisure facilities popping up across the country as Conservative investment decisions are finally realised, people may start to feel it, but they may not credit the Tories.

“It’s not about taking credit,” says Mr Stafford, adding: “It's all about getting what's best for the community and best for the area.”

“I very much believe if you work hard for the community, then people do see that.

“People understand, people are not stupid, especially in Rother Valley, they know what's going on, they understand that these projects take time, a long time.

“Once the seeds are there, the green shoots, we are beginning to see that.”

Those green shoots are coming for the Conservatives. They are coming in the economy, on growth, on inflation, on wages, on tax cuts, and on Levelling Up as well.

The problem for dozens of Tory MPs across the country when campaigning on the doorstep is that people have not been given the time to notice these green shoots.

On the economy, the drop in inflation has not translated into substantial falls in interest rates because the election has been called early.

On tax cuts, people have not noticed their savings increase, or there being a larger and larger amount left in their bank account at the end of the month because the election has been called early.

And, on Levelling Up, six months could have seen more projects start work, and arguably a government that truly believed in the project and its electoral potential should have made sure that the election was called exactly when those new buildings were going up and being opened.

This seat, unless Mr Stafford pulls off herculean effort to hold his constituency in a few weeks time, is an opportunity missed for the Conservatives, as five years looks set to undo a victory that was over a century in the making.