Tories’ red wall shows no signs of crumbling on Teesside

Sprawled across the long wall of Ben Houchen’s suburban office is a map of Teesport: the 4,500 acre site on the north east coast of England that once encompassed some of the area’s biggest employers. A thick red line is drawn around the mayor’s chief interest: the abandoned steel works.

Houchen hopes the area’s new freeport status, which grants some tax breaks and looser planning restrictions, will encourage investment once the Redcar steelworks, which closed in 2015, are bulldozed and create much needed and stable jobs. “We worked really hard on the freeport for four years. The first couple of years were very difficult, we kept bashing at a closed door,” Houchen said.

As a close ally of Boris Johnson, Houchen’s plans were unlocked when Johnson became prime minister in 2019. After freeport status was granted in the Budget in March, GE announced a new wind turbine factory on Teesside, creating 1,000 new roles. Although economists question the value of freeports, Houchen believes the status is vital for the area.

“People can talk about displacement, they can talk about additionality, GE were going to expand their factory in France if we didn’t get the freeport . . . it has cost the exchequer nothing,” he said. “If we can do what we want to deliver on that site, as well as across Teesside, you are getting dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of new employers.”

Houchen is up for re-election on May 6, when the 34-year-old hopes to gain a second term representing a conurbation of several of England’s post-industrial towns. From Stockton to Middlesbrough, this corner of England once had deep connections to the opposition Labour party — ties that were cut when the region’s heavy manufacturing industries entered inexorable decline.

In 2017, he delivered an electoral shock by winning the Tees Valley mayoralty for the Conservatives. His victory represented the first brick to be chipped out of the so-called “red wall”: Labour’s traditional heartland areas of England which have defected to the Tories over Brexit. Now he hopes to prove that the victory was not a one-off.

His election pitch then was unconventional for a Tory: Houchen pledged to renationalise the small Teesside airport and reinstate more flights. If the plan failed, he would sell off the land to recoup the costs. It now has 18 flights a day, compared to two before, and with 1.4m passengers passing through its doors, is on track to turn a profit within a decade.

The bookmakers have Houchen as the favourite in Thursday’s contest. Robert Oliver, a longtime Conservative activist and councillor, thought he would “easily win”, possibly on first preferences with over 50 per cent of the vote. Oliver cited his optimism and high profile. “Labour has fallen into the trap of being negative and quibbling about his achievements. ”

Oliver also noted that Houchen has been “showered with cash” from the Johnson government.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak chose the former railway town of Darlington in Tees Valley to be home for the Treasury’s new northern economic campus. The government has also granted £52m for a carbon capture project as part of Teesside’s burgeoning renewable sector.

Along with the freeport, these decisions have led to accusations of “pork barrel” politics. Houchen said it was “inaccurate” to use that term, arguing that the Tories are merely delivering on their electoral pledges. 

Jessie Joe Jacobs has the difficult task of challenging Houchen for Labour. A local charity worker, her focus is “people, place and jobs”. Her challenge to the electorate is “do you want sweets at election time? Or do you want ongoing, sustained rebuilding of the north?”

“We’ve got the gloss, we’ve got the spin but pre-Covid, there was 1,000 less jobs than before we had a mayor,” she said.

Struck down with coronavirus in the final 10 days before polling day, Jacobs acknowledged the campaign has been difficult for Labour, given its wider decline in Teesside, and described the fight with Houchen as a “David and Goliath scenario”.

She hopes that social deprivation issues will cut through. “My personal motivation is all the people that the mayor hasn’t delivered for.”

In Darlington town centre on Thursday, shoppers were mostly enthusiastically supporting Houchen’s re-election bid. Judith Isles, 58, said she would be voting for him again “because it’s optimistic” and has “brought lots of jobs to the airport”.

Tony Law, a taxi driver waiting for customers, predicted Houchen would “win by a landslide” and praised his improvements to the area. He voted for him in 2017 and would back him again. “He’s done a hell of a lot to change the area. He’s clearly had an impact,” he said.

Law felt the recent row about Johnson’s use of donations to redecorate the Downing Street flat was irrelevant. “He deserves nice curtains given what he’s been through with Covid. Boris has done a great job, especially with the vaccines.”

As well as the mayoralty, Tees Valley will be especially important on May 6 because of the Hartlepool by-election in the region. The town was such a Labour stronghold that the Conservatives did not target it in the 2019 election.

Were the Tories able to take it for the first time in 62 years, it would add credence to the view that a realignment among England’s working class is taking place. According to a new YouGov poll this week, the Conservatives have a 19 point lead among working class voters.

The biggest danger for Labour is what one red wall Tory MP described as the “Houchen factor”: voters will double tick to re-elect the mayor and Jill Mortimer to be Hartlepool’s first Conservative MP. One of Labour’s shadow cabinet ministers who has visited the seat cautioned that “it’s not looking good”.

If I’m not re-elected Tees Valley mayor, I would want to stay in politics. But I want to stay Tees Valley mayor for as long as possible

But Houchen’s success may not necessarily translate into national elections. His mayoralty makes him more independent ideologically from the Tory party. Benjamin Barber, author of If Mayors Ruled The World, argued that such roles have to be pragmatic by their nature,

“Mayors are not so much post-ideological as they are oblivious to ideology, seeing in ideology an obstacle to governance. Because in the city, governance is about solving problems, making things work,” he wrote.

As the Tories seek to define their levelling up agenda, Houchen has laid a blueprint of how the party can deliver for the parts of the country that backed them for the first time in recent elections.

Could Houchen imagine standing for parliament, mirroring the journey of Johnson from London’s City Hall to Westminster?

“If I’m not re-elected Tees Valley mayor, I would want to stay in politics,” he said before hastily adding: “But I want to stay Tees Valley mayor for as long as possible.”