How credible Labour candidates kept Reform at bay | Letters

The section predetermination results successful the north-east of England person been understandably portrayed arsenic disastrous for the Labour party, which mislaid Durham region assembly (The Guardian presumption connected Labour’s drift and Tory collapse: Reform fills a vacuum they created, 6 May). Labour besides mislaid seats successful Northumberland, but determination was 1 country of success. In the Tyne Valley, the Hexham constituency Labour enactment held 1 seat, gained different 2 (one from a Conservative, the different from a Socialist Independent) and came wrong a fistful of votes of unseating 2 different Conservatives.

Reform UK was overmuch little successful than elsewhere, adjacent successful “red wall” towns specified arsenic Prudhoe and Haltwhistle. The occurrence was based connected credible local candidates who exposed the mediocre grounds of the Conservative-run Northumberland region assembly for the past 8 years.

On the doorstep, determination was overmuch unhappiness with the Labour authorities and galore voters were considering voting for Reform. We kept Reform at bay by listening to concerns, agreeing that we wanted a alteration of absorption from the authorities and by promoting a affirmative imaginativeness of section Labour policies for Northumberland.

We made a constituent of talking astir the affirmative publication of immigrants to our locality. The authorities needs to reset its governmental compass and not marque the mistake of trying to mimic Reform. There is besides the request for the Labour enactment to perceive to members, peculiarly those who person tally campaigns that person successfully defeated Reform astatine the ballot container this month. I look guardant to proceeding from Morgan McSweeney.
John Hanley
Chair, Prudhoe, Wylam and Stocksfield Labour party

Your editorial writes of the first-past-the-post electoral strategy being “designed” to support retired extremism. In information it wasn’t designed for thing and was simply the effect of the instauration of adjacent electoral districts, each returning a azygous MP, successful 1885. Since then, it has suited the intent of the large parties to support this 19th-century relic. But whether its retention is genuinely successful the interests of Labour – which has held powerfulness for conscionable 28 years successful the past period – seems very doubtful.
Howard Spencer
Hove, East Sussex