When you ask voters in Wakefield about the upcoming by-election you are mostly met with deep sighs.
“I’m just sick to death of them all,” says Louise Smith of the June 23 election.
“I voted Brexit and I voted Conservative last time. But the reason we are having this by-election is disgraceful. Partygate as well shows they do whatever they want and think they can get away with it. Now there is some investigation into Labour for breaking lockdown rules. I can’t be bothered with any of them.”
Recent polls — which both sides have disputed as inaccurate — suggest Labour candidate Simon Lightwood will comfortably beat the Conservative Nadeem Ahmed, and replace disgraced former Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan.
In 2019 Khan was selected to run for Wakefield when preferred Tory candidate Antony Calvert resigned over social media posts where he had referred to London as “Londonistan”. Boosted by Brexit (66.4 per cent of Wakefield voters opted to leave the EU), Khan defeated Labour’s Mary Creagh to become the constituency’s first Tory MP in 89 years.
He won with a majority of 3,358. But just over two year later he quit after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Mr Ahmed, a lifelong Wakefield resident and councillor of 16 years, is keen to focus on local issues and Brexit and not the woes of the national party, or the reason the by-election is taking place.
“The decline of the Wakefield city centre over the years keeps coming up on the doorstep. Wakefield is a market town and we don’t want the market declining. Investment is being put in the wrong places and money seems to be being wasted.”
He added: “Brexit is still coming up. People are concerned that this is the second Labour candidate imposed on them externally, from outside of Wakefield. A Remainer. People just feel that debate is over and we need to get on with delivering what was voted for.”
When the Standard visits, Brexit minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and Brexiteer MPs David Davis and Andrea Jenkyns are in the city to drum up support. Mr Rees-Mogg said: “I think that in Brexit areas, it’s really important to show that we are delivering on Brexit plans, and that is very much happening in the session’s legislative programme.”
At the market, Allan Jones, 69, who runs a sweets and chestnut stall, is backing the Tories. He says Boris Johnson “sorted out this pandemic, he sorted Brexit out. All that about having a drink, the media ought to forget that now.”
Another stallholder, Paul Wilson, said the cost of living and transport strikes are top of his list of worries, but also that government scandals are “massively going to affect people when they go to vote”. Ollui Gassama, who will vote Labour, said: “What happened in the pandemic with the parties showed they just after themselves. The ones who are working with the NHS, they have got nothing from the Government.”
David Davis said: “It’s a fairly classical by-election with lots of local dimensions. Which is good for Nadeem. Because, frankly, on the national scene at the moment we have got controversy galore.”
