[ad_1]
And Paul Embery believes there is no guarantee of wooing back former supporters who defected to the Tories in 2019, explaining: “The taboo has been broken”. Mr Embery recently won an employment tribunal against the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) after being dismissed from his job as a union rep after attending a pro-Brexit rally, a victory which he admitted left him feeling both vindicated and sad at what he terms a “witch-hunt”.
He told Express.co.uk: “I’ve been in the Labour Party for 27 years.
“In terms of where it’s going, he’s got a mountain to climb and he’s still in the foothills at the moment.
“There is clearly a huge chasm now between the Labour Party and ordinary working class people in post-industrial Britain, small-town Britain, provincial Britain, call it what you like.”
Mr Embery added: “The Labour Party increasingly over the years, as some of us warned, was becoming a party of middle-class liberals, living in our fashionable cities and university towns, a party for social activists and student radicals.
“And increasingly, ordinary working-class, blue-collar Britain was moving away from the party.
“And parts of the party looked at those people with contempt.
JUST IN: China dispatches warships, fighter jets and troops towards Taiwan
“But with the election in 2019, that’s been broken.
“And like any taboo, once it’s broken, and people won’t hesitate to do it again.
“So there’s a genuine question now over whether the Labour Party is ever going to be a viable electoral force again, and the jury’s still out on that.”
Asked about the future electoral prospects of Red Wall Tories such as Matt Vickers in Stockton and Lee Anderson in Ashfield, Mr Embery said: “The truth is, they’ve won the votes, and you have to say at the moment they’ve got the democratic mandate to represent those communities now.
“Whether or not, whether or not they’ll win next time out, remains to be seen, but I think if people in these communities see that the Tories have tangibly improved their lives towns, invested in their communities, brought jobs to their communities, and opportunities, then, of course, the likelihood is that they will vote for them again.
“They will be looking for payback, people who voted Tory for the first time because it was a big thing for some of them.
“They will be looking for payback, people who voted Tory for the first time because it was a big thing for some of them.
“I mean we heard the stories of people being in the ballot box and having their grandad whispering in their ear and their families being tribally Labour going back through the generation so it was a big leap of faith want pay back.
“But if the Tories prove that they have tangibly improved the lives and communities of people in the old Red Wall as some people now call it there’s a good chance they’ll get the support again.”
[ad_2]
