In the fast-changing Cliftonville area of Margate, Labour has already been sent an early warning of the threat posed to its so-called ‘Sea Wall’ in coastal towns at next week’s local elections.
The Kent seaside town is part of an East Thanet constituency, which elected Labour MP Polly Billington with a 7,000 majority less than two years ago at the 2024 general election.
But in last May’s local elections, Labour finished second to Reform UK in the Cliftonville ward, with 22 per cent of the vote.
Eleven months on, in a council by-election triggered after Reform councillor Daniel Taylor was jailed for behaving in a controlling or coercive way towards his wife, Labour’s vote in Cliftonville plummeted.
The party finished fourth with 10 per cent of the vote, while the Greens won the seat with 39 per cent, having polled 12 per cent less than a year ago.
Pollsters believe Labour could be set for a similarly punishing night in coastal towns and cities across England on 7 May, with Reform confident of winning in areas such as Sunderland and Worthing and the Greens eyeing victory in areas like Hastings and South Tyneside.
Rob Yates, the Greens’ candidate in Cliftonville, was previously Labour cabinet member for corporate services at Thanet District Council before he defected to the Greens last year, saying he felt his shift mirrored the views of the wider community.
He said: “The mood in Margate has changed significantly in the last year since Labour have been in government.
“It’s very hard to find anyone now who openly says they are Labour, and when I defected, I didn’t get a single negative response from anyone in the community; in fact, I think it made more people question their own politics.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski believes this disillusionment in coastal towns will be affected across the UK on 7 May.
He told The i Paper that “voters are increasingly seeing that Greens are the only party offering a real alternative to the disappointments and U-turns of Labour” in “coastal places like Margate”, but also “South Tyneside, Hastings and Seaford”, where the party expects to perform well.
East Thanet, once the stomping ground of Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage when he tried to become a member of parliament for the first time in 2015, is home to a growing number of affluent residents, many of whom have moved from London and are fuelling a noticeable boom in trendy coffee shops and eateries.
In fact, Cliftonville’s high street was named among the “coolest streets in the world” by Time Out magazine last year.
However, more than 70 neighbourhoods across this part of Kent now fall inside England’s most deprived 10 per cent, according to Government data. That’s up from 51 in 2019.
The Greens’ win in Cliftonville was an unwelcome shock for Labour, which has held a majority of 30 out of 56 local council seats since the 2023 local elections for Thanet District Council.
In a one-bedroom ground-floor social housing flat, former Labour voter and long-time Margate resident John says he was one of the voters who turned his back on the party in favour of the Greens at the by-election, adding he wanted to see “change”.
“I’m giving a chance now to the Greens,” he says. “I really don’t want Reform anywhere near this area, and I don’t like Labour. They’ve all had their chance.”
Nearby, a man in his early 30s emerges from his delivery van to deliver parcels. Speaking of his support for the Greens, he said: “We’ve got a cost-of-living crisis, and they can sort it out,” adding that measures such as Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill are “too little, too late”.
“I’ve already had to move out of London because I couldn’t afford it,” he says. “Everything is just so broken – we need a complete change.”
Labour’s seaside woes
If polling is to believe, Labour can expect a collapse in support in coastal towns and cities, which, traditionally, have been considered Labour heartlands, are now Green and Reform targets.
The ‘Sea Wall’ is a term that was first coined in 2022 and again around the 2024 general election to describe coastal communities that showed strong backing for Labour in both local and national elections.
In 2022, left-leaning think tank the Fabian Society published a report arguing the “Sea Wall” represented a “new constituency grouping” where Labour could dominate, with the focus on issues such as the cost of living crisis and public transport.
In 2024, Labour won the coastal seats, including Hastings, Blackpool South, Weston-super-Mare, Camborne and Redruth, Central Ayrshire and held Cardiff South, Penrith and Caerphilly in Wales.
Other longer-held seats include South Tyneside, Sunderland (Central and South) and Bournemouth. And, of course, East Thanet.
Since her election as MP, Billington has established the Coastal Parliamentary Labour Party, a group of 66 MPs set up to focus on coastal issues, including poor transport links, seasonal economies, and infrastructure.
Billington told The i Paper that many coastal towns often “have more in common” with each other than with other near neighbours in their own counties.
“Margate has more in common with Blackpool than it does with Sevenoaks, for instance,” she said. “For that reason, I have established the Coastal PLP to bring MPs from these places together.”
The Fabians’ Ben Cooper, who authored their ‘Sea Wall’ report, said Labour may find their fortunes have turned across these communities.
“I wrote that original paper because I grew up in a coastal city in the north of England and I felt these places were being ignored and left behind by economic changes,” Cooper said.
“But more than that, I think what’s happening in our coastal communities is part of a national story – some voted for Brexit or for UKIP, but then the conversation just seemed to stop.”
Despite Labour gains in coastal constituencies in 2024, Cooper has he has concerns for Labour in this May’s elections.
“I do think there is still a lot of local frustration in coastal communities that change isn’t coming quickly enough and that they are not being listened to,” he added.
For her part, Billington worries that people who have moved to Margate from London may not be aware of “the deprivation just around the corner”.
She is talking to the Government about establishing a “coastal economic strategy” to try and “identify the commonalities in coastal towns” and avoid “deep inequalities being overlooked”.