About a decade ago, politicians and journalists were suddenly confronted with an issue that had always festered at the edge of the national conversation: the dire state of England’s seaside towns, and their deep social problems.
The referendum that would pull us out of the EU was a couple of years away, but one of the key things that made it happen was already plain to see: the rise of the UK Independence party, and a surge of grievance and complaint that had particularly strong roots on the East coast. In 2014, the faded Essex resort of Clacton held the byelection that resulted in the Tory turncoat Douglas Carswell becoming the first of Ukip’s two elected MPs. His new party was doing equally brisk political business in coastal towns clustered in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.
