UK election: Voters wonder if their vote will make a difference | World News

Many politicians have promised change to voters in Hartlepool, a windswept port town in northeast England.

For decades, Labour Party officials claimed they would fight for working people, even if well-paid manufacturing jobs were lost. Later, the Conservatives, under then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, promised to bring new money and opportunities through Brexit.

But as British voters prepare to elect a new government on Thursday, Hartlepool's many problems persist. It has higher unemployment, lower wages, shorter life expectancy, higher drug-related deaths and a higher crime rate than the country as a whole.

Opinion polls put the centre-left Labour Party well ahead of the ruling Conservatives nationally, but many voters remain undecided and even more are jaded.

To regain power after 14 years, Labour must win back disillusioned voters in Hartlepool and other northern towns where decades of economic decline have led to health and social problems and a deep sense of disillusionment.

“I voted Conservative in the last election because Johnson promised to give us back our waters and then lied through his teeth,” said Stan Rennie, a fisherman who has been fishing lobsters off Hartlepool for five decades but says he barely makes a living.

“Because we are in the Northeast, I don’t think the government knows we exist,” he said. “We are the forgotten land.”

Hartlepool, a proud and wild town jutting out into the North Sea 250 miles north of London, is marked by industrial decline. The shipyards and steelworks that once employed thousands are long gone. The fishing fleet has been in decline for years.

In a 2016 referendum, Hartlepool voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union, convinced by Johnson and other Brexit supporters that leaving the bloc would allow the U.K. to control immigration and free up billions of dollars for struggling post-industrial regions.

Three years later, many post-industrial areas of the Red Wall constituency, which had supported Labour, switched allegiance and supported Johnson's Conservatives in the election. Labour retained the seat in Hartlepool until 2021, when the Conservatives won the seat in a by-election.

In recent years, Hartlepool has received government funding to renovate its railway station, restore old buildings and revitalise the seafront, but well-paid jobs have been slow to arrive. In a town centre riddled with empty shops, pensioner Sheila Wainwright had to stop and think when asked what politicians had brought to Hartlepool.

She suggested improving the promenade. But then we saw all the shops closing, like in all the other cities.

I don't think you can believe anyone. They all come out with this stuff, but it never happens, from what I've seen.

Labour candidate Jonathan Brash hears similar sentiments when he knocks on doors around the city. He says he understands the distrust.

“Everywhere people turn, they find a country that doesn’t really work,” said Brash, a local councillor who grew up in Hartlepool. “Our public health service is in real trouble. Crime is up on our streets. There aren’t enough police officers. Our public space has disintegrated over the last 14 years.”

Few feel more betrayed than Hartlepool’s fishing community, guardians of a craft that is vital to the town’s identity. Many fishermen voted for Brexit to get rid of EU quotas and red tape, but say little has changed. And a new crisis erupted in late 2021 when dead and dying shellfish began washing up along England’s north-east coast.

Rennie and other fishermen suspect that dredging carried out as part of the redevelopment of former industrial land has released toxins from the nearby River Tees.

It was once one of the most industrialised areas in the country, a centre for chemicals, shipping and steel, and is now the site of a huge regeneration area known as the Teesside Freeport.

Two government-commissioned reports ruled out dredging but failed to confirm the cause of the mass die-off. Rennie and a group of fellow fishermen asked scientists to conduct their own research.

“My life’s work has just been destroyed,” Rennie said, standing next to the fishing boat he can no longer afford and the lobster traps that often come back empty. “It’s in our blood, and they’re taking it away from us.”

Rennie can trace fishing back 500 years in his family. But, he says, it's going to die with me.

Fishing appears set to play a small role in Hartlepool's economic future, but politicians hope another aspect of its maritime heritage, shipping, will be crucial.

The city's 200-acre commercial port employs far fewer people than it did when ships were built and coal was unloaded here, but it is still a bustling place, much of it tied to the growing renewable energy industry.

Companies at the port make underwater coils for wind turbines and help maintain vehicles building the world's largest offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from land.

“We will play a major role in offshore wind and other emerging technologies, including carbon capture and hydrogen,” said Jerry Hopkinson, executive chairman of operator PD Ports.

There are very, very big opportunities here in Teesside, he said. A lot more cargo, a lot more ships.

As Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives insist Britain needs to continue drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, Labour is promising to make the UK a clean energy superpower. Brash, the Labour candidate, says this will help Hartlepool regain its place as the engine of the British economy.

“Right now we’re seeing reindustrialisation around the world with cleaner technologies,” he said. “We’re behind in the UK, frankly, because of the decisions of this government. But it’s happening. Hartlepool and places like this have to be the absolute epicentre of that change.”

This change may seem far away. Whoever becomes prime minister – and polls suggest it will be Keir Starmer, the Labour leader – will have to deal with stagnant economic growth, high public debt and struggling public services.

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives are being honest with the public about the choice the next government will face between higher taxes and worsening public services, according to an independent think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Opinion polls suggest Brash will beat Conservative incumbent Jill Mortimer in Hartlepool, although many voters express a lack of enthusiasm for either party. Some are tempted by veteran right-winger Nigel Farage, who has shaken up the campaign with his anti-immigration rhetoric and populist promises.

Born and raised in Hartlepool, she values ​​its sense of community and says: “It’s the only town I can call home.”

She always votes. I have never missed an election and I have said she will support the Labour Party, even though she is not sure it will keep its promises.

We know what the party says it stands for, but we don't know whether it's going to happen or not, she said. But it would be nice to have a little change from what we have now.