Nigel Farage wins over the working class as they turn against Labour

Hard-working, straight-talking strivers have a new hero. Once backing Margaret Thatcher in their droves in the 1980s, Essex voters are now choosing Nigel Farage and Reform to lead the country back to prosperity – an early indicator for the rest of the nation.

The return of Essex Man became clear as local election results began coming in last week, when swathes of the county east of London switched from Tory, with Farage’s insurgent party taking Essex County Council after 25 years of Conservative rule. It was also notable that the London borough next to Essex was the first to swing to Reform. Having always considered themselves part of Essex, voters in Havering may also have been tempted by Farage’s offer of a referendum on exploring leaving Greater London, and the disastrous mayoral reign of Sadiq Khan, to rejoin the country that had long tempted Cockneys eastwards.

I must declare an interest here, having been brought up by East End parents who decamped to Brentwood in Essex for a leafier existence. They were just the kind of ambitious hard-workers, setting up their own businesses, who switched their lifelong political allegiances from Labour to Tory under Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Working-class voters had considered the Labour Party to be on their side since the end of World War 2, but the economic chaos of the 1970s, plus the militant rise of union power and a more student-style radical Left-wing ideology, began to put off patriotic strivers.

Thatcher matched their ambition by selling off council houses so they could get on the property ladder and proved she was batting for Britain by successfully defending the Falkland Islands. The unleashing of the City of London helped too.

I remember a lad from my comprehensive school leaving school at 16 to work in a local garage. He was then introduced to the mysteries of euro bond trading and never looked back, buying one of the biggest houses in Brentwood at the time. That’s real opportunity for young people.

Pollsters identified these newly prosperous voters as the ones propelling the Tories to successive election wins in the 1980s and 1990s. Having done well out of Thatcherism, they were then willing to give Tony Blair a go as New Labour promised a modernised workers’ party more in tune with their aspirations and patriotism. But this proved an illusion.

Middle-class Lefties have always looked down on working-class virtues, and this was expressed most clearly by Islington MP Emily Thornberry notoriously mocking England flags on a house with a white van parked outside.

New Labour further outraged Essex Man by triggering uncontrolled, mass migration. Former GMB union boss John Edmonds told me this was originally intended to undermine union power, but as the pace increased, it also threatened the very identity of many working-class communities.

East Enders have always tended to move beyond the M25 as their lives got better, but this had a new urgency as successive new waves of migrants took over the traditional East End as far as Romford.

While in the past, Essex Man would have been true blue voters, 14 years of failing Tory government, culminating in Boris Johnson’s betrayal of their cherished values, with net zero and yet more mass migration, has seen them turn to Nigel Farage and Reform.

Just as Labour took for granted its Red Wall voters, so Tories always assumed Essex Man was on their side. Following last week’s electoral revolt, unless there is a huge improvement in their fortunes, many leading shadow ministers could be at risk of losing their Essex seats in a future general election, including Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

With his own lack of appeal to working-class voters, Starmer is also on the way out.

Essex Man and Woman, just like their Red Wall brothers and sisters, have woken up to the fact that only Nigel Farage cares about their country as much as they do. If they want a country that rewards hard work, it’s no good looking to Starmer’s tax and spend party that now largely represents the bloated public sector and benefits claimants.

If they want a proud country that can defend its borders, it’s no good looking to the two parties who’ve allowed in hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants while fobbing off public questions as racist. As of last week, Essex Man is back, and he’s not going to take any more nonsense from failing politicians.