Boris Johnson can’t get rid of the “Partygate” – at least in London, where it keeps the media and parliament in turmoil. But what about where the Tories really have nothing to fear? A foray through old and new strongholds.
Ever since Susan Whatmough, from Boston in east England, has been allowed to vote, the Conservative Tory Party has had its vote secure. “I’ve always voted for the Tories – but I wouldn’t do it again,” says the red-haired woman in the fur coat, while the sun slowly sets over the half-timbered streets of the small town idyll. The fact that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson not only allowed parties during the lockdown in Downing Street, but probably even celebrated himself, was the last straw for them. “I lost a son during that time and the Queen lost her husband – and he’s having a party.”
Do you want to continue to be governed by Boris Johnson?
If you’re looking for places where people support the Tories, the small town of Boston is a safe bet. In the most recent parliamentary election in 2019, the party achieved around 77 percent, the constituency has always been one of its bastions. In Boston, three out of four citizens voted in favor of the Brexit referendum. So what do you think about the “Partygate” affair, which has been the number one topic of conversation in Westminster for weeks? Do you want to continue to be ruled by party king Boris Johnson in Boston? Or is the topic of no interest in the “real world” at all, as the new Brexit Secretary of State Jacob Rees-Mogg recently suspected?
“I’m for him,” says Kelly Brandon, who sells fruit and veg at the marketplace. “Everyone did it,” she says of the lockdown parties. “I know he should be a role model but he wasn’t. Get over it, it’s not that big of a deal.” It’s not the only time on this foray that someone admits to having celebrated one or the other time, just not to have been caught. A retiree with a thick brown mustache hopes his peers won’t overthrow Johnson any time soon. Although the prime minister is “a bit of a clown”, he is also “brilliant for our country”.
But such clear advocates are not found on every corner. The Tories voted, yes, many voted in Boston – the man in the plaid shirt, the one in the blue down jacket, Susan Whatmough and her husband and many others. They still think the Prime Minister’s time is up.
Susan and Lesley Whatmough in the small town of Boston in eastern England: “I’ve lost a son and the Queen lost her husband – and Boris Johnson is having a party.”
© Larissa Schwedes / DPA
Driving across the country during these turbulent weeks, one hears many names for Boris Johnson, “clown” being one of the more harmless ones. Leaving the Tory stronghold of Boston, the terms become coarser and supporters harder to find. This is also the case in the port city of Hartlepool on the north-east coast of England – and this despite the fact that the decades-old bastion of the Social Democratic Labor Party has also been firmly in Tory hands since a by-election last year. The green lettering “Jill Mortimer MP” on the windows of the constituency office is still shiny.
Back then, in spring 2021 at the height of the vaccination campaign, Boris Johnson got good poll numbers and his party colleague Mortimer was the first Conservative MP for Hartlepool to move into the House of Commons with 60 percent of the vote. The region is the youngest “Red Wall Seat”, as constituencies are called that were traditionally in Labor hands and only recently went to the Tories.
“It doesn’t really matter who the prime minister is”
“He has to resign. He lied to Parliament, he has to go!” says pensioner Dougie Maclean, who can be found drinking a pint in the “Three Brass Monkeys” pub in the evening and who usually puts his cross on the ballot with Labor. The pub’s mascots are the three famous monkey heads, one covering his mouth, one covering his eyes and the third covering his ears. Carol Brown from the next table also thinks it is appropriate not to look so closely at what was a party and what wasn’t. She and her husband never voted, are not particularly interested in politics. Johnson had had a really difficult time and if someone else had been prime minister they would certainly have celebrated too. “I think he should stay. I like him,” says Brown.
For some, living in Hartlepool and supporting the Tory party is beyond imagination. “Hartlepool has nothing, the people of Hartlepool have absolutely nothing,” says one of the few strollers on the town’s beach, a 77-year-old local resident who remembers how the now derelict pier was built when he was young.
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With its wide sandy beach and rolling dunes, Hartlepool could be a tourist paradise. But there are no beach chairs, no jetty, not even a kiosk where you could buy an ice cream in summer. On a sunny February day, the coast is almost deserted, and you can count a few walkers on one hand. Those who live in Hartlepool often cannot afford to simply enjoy the great outdoors.
In the city center, many shops are empty or have their shutters pulled all the way down. One of the large letters is missing on a formerly magnificent building, the former “Grand Hotel” is now only “rand Hotel”. Many here agree that they have little hope. “It doesn’t really matter who is prime minister,” says Rosemary Sladden, who has lived all over the world, including Germany. “The real damage happened when we left Europe.” She herself is out of politics.
The same goes for two taxi drivers who are waiting for passengers in front of the train station and only have a tired laugh for Boris Johnson. Both had at least hoped that Brexit would improve their lives, but so far they too have been disappointed. They are outraged that political opponents in Westminster attack each other in Parliament and then drink a beer together in the pub. A corrupt, elitist capital city bubble that knows nothing about what occupies people here in the north. “They’re all the same,” says one of the two. Whether Boris Johnson or not – that is a side issue here.