Manchester: The earthquake in British politics could be felt on the streets when voters walked to their polling stations on Thursday in Manchester.
Angry at the state of their country, voters knew they had an opportunity to send a message in their local council elections to rebuke – or replace – Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“I voted Labour all my life. I don’t think I am today,” said John Locke, 63, a business owner who has made his living from Manchester’s famous music and club scene.
“Our prime minister just doesn’t have any balls, and he needs to grow some.
“I just think he’s not got what it takes to be a great leader. I think he’d be a great second in command.”
Locke revels in Manchester’s music scene – the city produced Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis, to name a few – but he despairs at its public services.
“We need to try and do something about wait lists at hospitals. I was in the hospital recently, and I was there for 11½ hours, and I still didn’t get seen,” he said.
“We need to try and do something about our homeless. It’s all that basic stuff.”
There is a raw discontent in this city – and this country. And it is powering a very British backlash.
The outcome is expected to drive Labour out of power in the Welsh parliament, send it to new depths in the Scottish parliament and wipe out many of its local councillors in England.
The results on Friday morning in Britain (5pm Friday AEST) confirmed a savage swing against Labour.
About 5000 council seats were up for election. Forecasters at PollCheck, an independent site, estimated Labour would shrink from 2307 to 1110 councillors and the Conservative Party would fall from 1230 to 707.
The Greens were tipped to grow from 183 to 689 seats, while Reform UK, the populist right-wing party led by Nigel Farage, was expected to swell from 69 to 1421 seats.
This is not just about personalities and media headlines. Households have been feeling the twin pressures of low wages and rising prices, as well as a chronic housing shortage.
Jasmine Broadmeadow, 24, was raised in a working-class household in Cheshire – her mother worked three jobs, including as a cleaner – and said she believed life was getting harder for workers.
Broadmeadow said she worked close to full-time hours while studying food science, but could barely get by. She wanted a higher minimum wage for all.
“In my area, there’s a lot of poverty and anger,” she said.
“So you’ve got one side that’s really gentrified, and another side that is poor and underdeveloped and it’s just forgotten about.”
She nodded towards some high-rise apartments in the distance.
“We need more affordable housing because, you know, the skyscrapers over there, well, no one here can afford to live in them.”
‘I wouldn’t say we’re due a revolution, but there’s a level of discontent in the populace which comes from income distribution.’
Malcolm Skinner, cafe owner
The disenchantment with Labour was palpable outside the polling stations in the Piccadilly district in the heart of Manchester. Labour has dominated this area for decades, but voters said they wanted to use their votes to send a message. For some, that meant voting for the Greens.
“For myself, it is just any opportunity to kind of swing the numbers,” said Josh, a young graphic designer who did not want to give his last name.
“It’s about doing anything to show our unhappiness with how things are being run currently. Anything to kind of just show my anger.”
Amanda, a young project manager, said Labour had done better than the Conservatives on managing the National Health Service (the country’s equivalent to Medicare). She was frustrated, however, with the prime minister’s “fence sitting” on every issue. On foreign policy, she believed Starmer needed to do more to stand up to US President Donald Trump.
Farage and Reform are on the rise in many parts of the country, but not in central Manchester. One voter, Jake, a young professional, said he was turning up to do what he could to block the populist party.
“I’m just shocked at how well they’re doing,” he said. “And I think nothing really matters other than not letting them get in.”
But there were plenty of voters barracking for Farage on Thursday. If there had been a general election this week, Reform UK would have gained 25 per cent of the national vote, according to polling firm YouGov. The support for Labour would have been only 18 per cent – a catastrophically low number. It won 33.7 per cent at the 2024 general election.
The polling shows that migration is a key reason for voters deserting the major parties and backing Farage in the belief he will stop asylum seekers. One Mancunian, a white woman in her fifties who declined to give her name, summed up this sentiment while speaking very quietly so she could not be overheard.
“It’s all fighting-age men,” she said of the asylum seekers. “That’s a red flag. It’s not really about asylum. They’re here for economic reasons – it’s there for all to see. But if you say it, they call you a racist.”
Others were forcefully in favour of accepting migrants. “The more the merrier in Manchester,” said Locke.
In this city, those who were unhappy with Starmer have a local hero who could replace him. The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has been touted incessantly by supporters who have briefed the media on his plans to become prime minister.
Broadmeadow said Burnham seemed to be “one of the people” and could speak directly with voters on talkback radio.
“I think we need a new Labour Party leader – 100 per cent we do,” she said.
“If Andy Burnham was to run for prime minister, I’d vote for him.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Mancunians walked along Piccadilly without looking for the polling stations nearby. Turnout at council elections is historically low: only 30.8 per cent of registered eligible voters bothered to cast votes at the last ones.
There was no queue on Thursday at the central Manchester booths, and voters seemed to be done within 10 minutes. The malaise in British politics was on display: if the public was disenchanted, it was also disengaged.
Malcolm Skinner, 43, a cafe owner based in Manchester, predicted unrest would grow as workers struggled on low incomes in a society with a wealthy elite.
“I wouldn’t say we’re due a revolution, but there’s a level of discontent in the populace which comes from income distribution,” he said.
“The truth is that income inequality, which is only going to be worse, means that people create more discontent, and that creates instability in the government. And we’ve got a load of instability coming.”
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.