The view from Copeland: 'Lifelong Labour voters want Corbyn out'

The Labour canvassers have all gone home, their leaflets blown away, but the party’s biggest problem remains front and centre on Whitehaven’s picturesque marina.

“Just about everyone – Labour people – I’ve spoken to does not like him,” said Christine Curtin, who described herself on Friday as a dyed-in-the-wool Labour voter. The “him” is Jeremy Corbyn.

Many commentators felt the Labour leader’s perceived anti-nuclear stance would prove toxic in Copeland, where more than 10,000 jobs rely on the industry, but it appears the feeling runs far deeper than that.

“I think it’s his personality, his history of engaging with what we see as terrorists,” said Curtin, pointing to media reports of his historical links with Sinn Féin leaders. “There’s a lot of things involved. He seems to be more extreme than a lot of us are around here.”

Curtin, a 57-year-old housewife, said she decided at the last minute to vote Labour despite deep reservations about Corbyn, who she felt was only interested in Copeland “because he wants to shut the factory”, the Sellafield nuclear decommissioning site.

In the Mirehouse Labour Social Club on Whitehaven’s biggest estate the view among lunchtime drinkers was equally dismal. “Labour will never come back again here,” said one lifetime Labour voter, who declined to be named.

Savouring a cheap pint the day after the Conservative party ended Labour’s eight-decade rule in Copeland, the drinkers expressed deep antipathy towards Corbyn and disillusionment about politics in general.

“A lot of people don’t like Corbyn,” said one downcast voter. “He’s a lunatic. If they want to keep the nuclear industry, he’ll shut it down. If they want to keep the hospital, he’ll shut it down. It’s either his way or no way.”

Labour canvassers admitted before the byelection that the leader was the most common topic on the doorstep. Yet activists hoped the Corbyn factor might be drowned out by widespread anger at Tory-backed plans to downgrade the maternity unit at the West Cumberland hospital.

When it came to voting, however, many said they believed lifelong Labour voters turned blue in the hope it would trigger Corbyn’s removal and save the party from perceived electoral oblivion.

“This week I’ve spoken to a lot of people, lifelong Labour voters who I’ve known for a very long time, who voted Conservative because they want Jeremy Corbyn out,” said Mike Starkey, the independent mayor of Copeland.

Starkey said he believed the Labour revolt would claim further scalps in the party’s heartlands if Corbyn remained in charge.

He predicted that Sue Hayman, the well-respected Labour MP for neighbouring Workington, would be the next to lose her seat. “There’s a consensus that if Jeremy Corbyn leads them into a general election it will be catastrophic,” he said.

Back on the marina, a passing cyclist, who did not want to be named, said he was a lifelong Labour voter and remained that way begrudgingly in Thursday’s byelection. He said he would take his vote elsewhere at the next election unless Corbyn was unseated.

“I’m quite disillusioned with the party,” he said. “I’m not a Jeremy Corbyn supporter and even after this result, it confirmed deep down what I thought about the current state of the party. I don’t think I’ll ever vote Tory but it depends what happens with Labour, if they get their house in order and sort their policies out.”

Leonard and Joy Rogers, both 81, said they were normally Liberal Democrat voters but voted Conservative on Thursday.

“Labour doesn’t enthuse anyone with confidence, does it?” Leonard Rogers said. “With him as leader I certainly would not vote for Labour. The Conservatives seem to be the only viable alternative.”

The retiree, who moved to the west Cumbrian coast from south-west London, said most of his northern friends were Labour supporters. “We’ve got friends just down the road from us and they’ve historically voted Labour but this time they’ve voted Conservative. They felt it was the only viable party.”

Mary and Geoff Mooney, 67 and 68 respectively, said most of their friends were Labour voters but many voted against the party in protest at the perceived decline of Whitehaven town centre, which was busy with half-term holidaymakers on Friday.

“I’m not surprised at the result, because people needed change,” Mary Mooney said. “The town’s derelict. The harbour’s beautiful, but go to the town and there’s nothing to keep visitors here. The [Labour-run] town council doesn’t do much. Something drastic needs to happen in Whitehaven.”

Geoff Mooney said they voted Conservative but did not hold out much hope for change. “We’re out on a limb up here and whether we’ll get any help from central government, I’m not sure. It’s going to take a lot of money and we probably won’t see it in our lifetimes.”

Dorothy Cameron, 81, said she felt similarly despondent. “People are really fed up because they feel not taken notice of. We’re right out of it and it’s like we hardly exist. It’s out of sight, out of mind.”

Joanne Parry, 57, a restaurant owner, said she voted Conservative to try to break Labour’s long-held dominance in west Cumbria. “A monkey could stand for Labour here and they would get in. It’s time for a change,” she said. “Labour has been here for 80-odd years and it’s time to give the Conservatives a chance and see if they do any better or worse.”