Among other defeats, the recent local elections saw Labour lose heavily across the Midlands and the north of England. The results are reminiscent of the 2016 Brexit vote and, with the return of those electoral geographies, some of the old tropes have resurfaced, too.

Once again, England’s post-industrial towns are cast as the angry, reactionary counterparts to booming, progressive cities. Certainly, Reform UK is winning there now, but that is not the full picture. These places should not be chalked up as lost causes for the left.

Over the past five years, I have been conducting intermittent ethnographic research in Mansfield, the former mining town in Nottinghamshire, to study its changing politics. Although it voted in a Labour MP at the last general election, the constituency now heavily favours Farage. Interviewing people in 2021, 2024 and again over the past year, I have seen the shift happen in real time.

Take Martin*, an ex-miner, and his wife, Diane, who worked with disabled children until she retired last year. Both voted Labour in 2024, which they now regret. “They haven’t got a clue how we live,” Martin says of politicians, “not a clue.” Both are appalled by politicians’ perks and pay. The £98,000 salary, second jobs and lobbying scandals strengthen their sense that politics is corrupt.

They are not alone in this – political corruption came up frequently in my interviews. Martin is planning to vote Reform next time. Diane says she probably won’t vote at all, being somewhat........

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