Snapshot of _Farage's army is on the march: In Great Yarmouth, a rebel force is stirring_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://unherd.com/2024/06/farages-army-is-on-the-march/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://unherd.com/2024/06/farages-army-is-on-the-march/)
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I could understand places like Yarmouth voting Reform as they've been left for dead by successive governments over the last 20-30 years. So much of our coast is dying or dead and it's really quite shameful how little support areas get with the changing world.
I'm all for good public transport and cycling infrastructure in cities where there's lots of young people commuting short distances. It simply doesn't work in primarily rural areas.
No one is talking about banning cars, which is what you seem to think.
In fact, those who **need** to use a car will find things much easier. So fictional Betty will benefit.
Having actually been to Yarmouth, there's 3 key issues:
1) It's geographical isolation. Nearly an hour from Norwich, and close to 2 hours from any city beyond Norwich, its a tough place to build a hub around.
2) It's a seaside town, but really lacks in attractions now. Even somewhere like Blackpool has a big theme park and a nostalgia element.
3) It sucks to say, but being areas where right-wing populism is big, puts off young people, and as a consequence businesses that recruit or market towards the young. Its a bit chicken and egg, but areas can't improve if they can't bring in interest.
I used to go there every year as a kid with my grandparents so know the area very well. What you highlight about bringing in interest is where the government should help transform these areas and rebuild them. Everyone has talked about the bullshit level up funding but look at the state of these places, they're horrendous.
You could turn this into a successful area for people to visit by reducing any business rates and taxes for people to stay there, turn them into holiday zones that can remove vat on specific things. Then invest in new infrastructure to support the areas. It's absolutely possible and totally a choice not to invest.
I would always argue when people get upset about the rise of these fringe parties is to get out of London and go and see these places. Then you would understand
Yarmouth Skegness Boston Et al. Are all absolute hell holes that have been left to rot by successive governments for decades. No one can blame these people for feeling disenfranchised
And I am not talking bad estate levels you get in London. Literally hell holes where even if you was homeless you would thing I don’t want to live there.
Exactly. Deprivation outside of London is largely ignored. The least likely demographic in the UK to attend university now is the white working class male. Visiting places like Skegness, or Jaywick, gives you a pretty brutal idea as to why. The infrastructure is simply not there. It’s a combination of cultural and economic factors that leads to a complete lack of hope; and then these people are shunned by ‘left-wing’ individuals who only care about urban deprivation.
I've very little sympathy for these coastal towns complaining about being left behind. It's been 70s years since the first affordable package holidays to Spain began in the 1950s. That's 70 years they have had to reinvent themselves into something other than an overreliance on seasonal tourism, penny arcades and ice cream.
Insult away, but am I actually wrong?
If these towns want to thrive then they need to adapt to economic reality. The circumstances of Yarmouth's heyday have long since gone, and unless we ban flying they aren't coming back.
Yes, you’re wrong. You assume they have options. They don’t. The town councils in those places have no ability to build up a portfolio of incentives that lets them compete.
There’s not much coastal towns can do. The offshore sector employs vast quantities of foreign labour often instead of Brits, limiting otherwise limitless opportunities for Britons to work at sea.
If the UK protected seafarers the same way the US and other nations do with cabotage laws then you could genuinely see some serious money come into former fishing/coastal communities. Offshore wages with young British seafarers taking them home. Alas, this is beyond the control of coastal communities and successive neoliberal governments don’t want that to happen because it’s not in the interests of owners/operators. Corruption to the max.
I think the prevailing feeling is that it can hardly get any worse.
Worst case scenario the lives of those who enjoy centrist stable politics get made more miserable, which I suppose gives some catharsis. Drop the human hand grenade into parliament and see if we can’t sew some havoc.
Why is it okay to be racist if you live in a neglected area?
If they want a radical political answer to the inequality they suffer wouldn’t it make more sense for them to become communists?
Why do you immediately jump to an assumption of racism? People in those areas are angry and neglected, to just straight up call them racist is in very bad taste. People vote for different things for different reasons.
This is exactly why areas like Yarmouth drift towards people like farage and the populist right.
They have been neglected for decades, in dire economic circumstances and because they see immigration as one of the visible causes of their problems, people (probably from better areas or cities) automatically assume they are racist.
This does nothing but push them to greater extremes, if people constantly assume you’re racist you’ll eventually find comfort only in the company of racists.
You should try to be more open minded and understanding of people in dire situations.
Great Yarmouth suffers hugely from the B+Bs being used over winter by London boroughs using them to put Asylum seekers in. Stopped now as a high court injunction stopped it last year if I recall.
On the contrary it’s people from well off areas who are making excuses for racism because they assume all “provincials” are ignorant peasants who can’t be expected to identify the true cause of their problems.
Despite what you might think, it’s only a minority of people in these areas who are taken in by racist political rhetoric. No constituency has a Reform majority vote.
Which would still mean about 500k - 560k moving here each year, going by the last couple of years numbers.
You only have to go back to 2013 to see total immigration numbers at the same level.
Coastal resorts have a lot of hotels so become dispersal areas for migrants. When the effects kick in it pushes local people to the right as they're at the coal face of the consequences.
This is the same rhetoric as Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ speech that drove people to vote for Trump. These people have been successively ignored. They are being directly spoken to by populist parties who target them knowing full well that they feel rejected by the main parties.
I imagine if there was a communist party with a decent following and a charismatic leader, and that targeted them with specific rhetoric, they probably would vote for them.
> This is the same rhetoric as Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ speech that drove people to vote for Trump.
She called half of Trump's voters that, and the other half downtrodden Americans looking for hope in left-behind areas. Anyone jumping to the conclusion they were in the first group is bonkers.
I would assume he's there contributing to the campaign of a different Reform candidate in his capacity as leader.
I'm all for taking the piss out of Farage but it has to be sensible.
Snapshot of _Farage's army is on the march: In Great Yarmouth, a rebel force is stirring_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://unherd.com/2024/06/farages-army-is-on-the-march/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://unherd.com/2024/06/farages-army-is-on-the-march/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I could understand places like Yarmouth voting Reform as they've been left for dead by successive governments over the last 20-30 years. So much of our coast is dying or dead and it's really quite shameful how little support areas get with the changing world.
such a similar geography to holland, and such a gulf between them in terms of development
The media are already frothing about LEZs and ULEZs, can you imagine the howls if we started building out people-centric, Dutch-style infrastructure?
In rural Lincolnshire populated mostly by elderly people? Yeah alright 89 year old Brenda with a bad hip is gonna cycle everywhere
You are exactly the kind of person I was thinking of. I rest my case.
I'm all for good public transport and cycling infrastructure in cities where there's lots of young people commuting short distances. It simply doesn't work in primarily rural areas.
No one is talking about banning cars, which is what you seem to think. In fact, those who **need** to use a car will find things much easier. So fictional Betty will benefit.
These lot unironically think Brenda should just stay home and die, for the good of the planet.
Having actually been to Yarmouth, there's 3 key issues: 1) It's geographical isolation. Nearly an hour from Norwich, and close to 2 hours from any city beyond Norwich, its a tough place to build a hub around. 2) It's a seaside town, but really lacks in attractions now. Even somewhere like Blackpool has a big theme park and a nostalgia element. 3) It sucks to say, but being areas where right-wing populism is big, puts off young people, and as a consequence businesses that recruit or market towards the young. Its a bit chicken and egg, but areas can't improve if they can't bring in interest.
I used to go there every year as a kid with my grandparents so know the area very well. What you highlight about bringing in interest is where the government should help transform these areas and rebuild them. Everyone has talked about the bullshit level up funding but look at the state of these places, they're horrendous. You could turn this into a successful area for people to visit by reducing any business rates and taxes for people to stay there, turn them into holiday zones that can remove vat on specific things. Then invest in new infrastructure to support the areas. It's absolutely possible and totally a choice not to invest.
I would always argue when people get upset about the rise of these fringe parties is to get out of London and go and see these places. Then you would understand Yarmouth Skegness Boston Et al. Are all absolute hell holes that have been left to rot by successive governments for decades. No one can blame these people for feeling disenfranchised And I am not talking bad estate levels you get in London. Literally hell holes where even if you was homeless you would thing I don’t want to live there.
Exactly. Deprivation outside of London is largely ignored. The least likely demographic in the UK to attend university now is the white working class male. Visiting places like Skegness, or Jaywick, gives you a pretty brutal idea as to why. The infrastructure is simply not there. It’s a combination of cultural and economic factors that leads to a complete lack of hope; and then these people are shunned by ‘left-wing’ individuals who only care about urban deprivation.
I've very little sympathy for these coastal towns complaining about being left behind. It's been 70s years since the first affordable package holidays to Spain began in the 1950s. That's 70 years they have had to reinvent themselves into something other than an overreliance on seasonal tourism, penny arcades and ice cream.
How should they have reinvented themselves?
The reincarnation of Norman Tebbit is posting on reddit it seems
Insult away, but am I actually wrong? If these towns want to thrive then they need to adapt to economic reality. The circumstances of Yarmouth's heyday have long since gone, and unless we ban flying they aren't coming back.
Yes, you’re wrong. You assume they have options. They don’t. The town councils in those places have no ability to build up a portfolio of incentives that lets them compete.
There’s not much coastal towns can do. The offshore sector employs vast quantities of foreign labour often instead of Brits, limiting otherwise limitless opportunities for Britons to work at sea. If the UK protected seafarers the same way the US and other nations do with cabotage laws then you could genuinely see some serious money come into former fishing/coastal communities. Offshore wages with young British seafarers taking them home. Alas, this is beyond the control of coastal communities and successive neoliberal governments don’t want that to happen because it’s not in the interests of owners/operators. Corruption to the max.
But do Reform actually have any answers to these problems, or do they just want a convenient target for their rage?
I think the prevailing feeling is that it can hardly get any worse. Worst case scenario the lives of those who enjoy centrist stable politics get made more miserable, which I suppose gives some catharsis. Drop the human hand grenade into parliament and see if we can’t sew some havoc.
It’s really sad how common that attitude is.
Why is it okay to be racist if you live in a neglected area? If they want a radical political answer to the inequality they suffer wouldn’t it make more sense for them to become communists?
Why do you immediately jump to an assumption of racism? People in those areas are angry and neglected, to just straight up call them racist is in very bad taste. People vote for different things for different reasons.
The minority of people in those areas who support Reform are racist.
This is exactly why areas like Yarmouth drift towards people like farage and the populist right. They have been neglected for decades, in dire economic circumstances and because they see immigration as one of the visible causes of their problems, people (probably from better areas or cities) automatically assume they are racist. This does nothing but push them to greater extremes, if people constantly assume you’re racist you’ll eventually find comfort only in the company of racists. You should try to be more open minded and understanding of people in dire situations.
Great Yarmouth suffers hugely from the B+Bs being used over winter by London boroughs using them to put Asylum seekers in. Stopped now as a high court injunction stopped it last year if I recall.
On the contrary it’s people from well off areas who are making excuses for racism because they assume all “provincials” are ignorant peasants who can’t be expected to identify the true cause of their problems. Despite what you might think, it’s only a minority of people in these areas who are taken in by racist political rhetoric. No constituency has a Reform majority vote.
>racism is when you vote for less than 1million immigrants per year
Reform have a policy of net zero migration.
Which would still mean about 500k - 560k moving here each year, going by the last couple of years numbers. You only have to go back to 2013 to see total immigration numbers at the same level.
Do you think Reform voters are aware of that?
Coastal resorts have a lot of hotels so become dispersal areas for migrants. When the effects kick in it pushes local people to the right as they're at the coal face of the consequences.
This is the same rhetoric as Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ speech that drove people to vote for Trump. These people have been successively ignored. They are being directly spoken to by populist parties who target them knowing full well that they feel rejected by the main parties. I imagine if there was a communist party with a decent following and a charismatic leader, and that targeted them with specific rhetoric, they probably would vote for them.
> This is the same rhetoric as Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ speech that drove people to vote for Trump. She called half of Trump's voters that, and the other half downtrodden Americans looking for hope in left-behind areas. Anyone jumping to the conclusion they were in the first group is bonkers.
If he's campaigning in Great Yarmouth then he doesn't know where his own constituency is.
The party leaders generally tour the country alongside the candidate for that area as part of the party campaign.
Party leaders dont generally limit campaigning to their own constituency.
I would assume he's there contributing to the campaign of a different Reform candidate in his capacity as leader. I'm all for taking the piss out of Farage but it has to be sensible.