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Runcorn Labour on back foot as festival of Farage gains pace

The Guardian

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April 30, 2025

It's lunchtime on St George's Day and the Royal pub in Runcorn is a festival of flags, fags and Farage.

- Josh Halliday Olivia Lee

Runcorn Labour on back foot as festival of Farage gains pace

"I'm sorry," says Mike Kneale, a painter, as he explains which party he will back in this week's crucial byelection: "But it's Nigel Farage."

The Reform UK leader's Cheshire cat grin leaps out from billboards and doormats all over this constituency, where his party is odds-on to win its fifth MP and deliver a blow to Keir Starmer. It would be the first time in half a century that Runcorn has elected a non-Labour MP.

Labour won Runcorn and Helsby, on the industrial banks of the Mersey, with a thumping 14,696-vote majority 10 months ago. But a drunken assault by the sitting MP Mike Amesbury means its 16th safest seat is up for grabs and the dogfight between Starmer's party and Reform is getting ugly.

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