Storm ahead? Reform's message may be at odds with Teesside's green hopes

"We are basically going through the deindustrialisation of the country at the moment and I think we're losing a lot of jobs," said John Mac, over a pot of tea in a bustling Caffè Nero in the centre of Stockton-on-Tees.

- Richard Partington

The local candidate for Reform UK worked at the Billingham plant of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) for years, before taking voluntary redundancy in the 1990s. Having witnessed decades of industrial decline on Teesside, Nigel Farage's move to court the working-class is speaking his language.

The Reform leader is targeting voters in post-industrial communities across Britain, outlined in a Guardian series showing how Farage views the "next Brexit" as reversing net zero to create a manufacturing renaissance.

This, the third in the series, looks at the future of another of Britain's industrial heartlands.

Higher unemployment and poverty If the latest opinion polls are correct, four out of the Tees Valley's constituencies would go to Reform if an election were held tomorrow - including for Mac in Stockton North. However Labour - which controls six of the seats - is at pains not to allow a repeat of 2019, when its so-called "Red Wall" heartlands fell to the Tories, with many places - including on Teesside - turning blue for the first time.

Wednesday is market day in Stockton on the north bank of the Tees and Mac would usually be handing out leaflets to passersby. Many people are frustrated with the cost of living, lack of opportunities for young people and immigration, he said.

"They just think Labour don't represent the working class any more," said Mac.

Stockton and the wider Teesside area has higher than national average rates of unemployment, poverty and low educational attainment - trailing the rest of Britain in no small part as a legacy of a deindustrial revolution.

Once described by William Gladstone as an "infant Hercules", a hotbed of steelmaking, shipbuilding and chemicals, Teesside has suffered waves of job losses in the past 50 years amid Britain's broader industrial decline.