A Shadow Cast by Boris Johnson: The Impact on Local Conservative Campaigns
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen operates in a familiar way; could his Boris Johnson-style politics be the key to success in the upcoming election?
Is Boris Johnson’s style of politics still alive and well in parts of the country?
Travel 250 miles from London to the Tees Valley in the North East, and a big personality mayor rules the roost in a familiar manner.
Renowned Tory leader Ben Houchen is known for fostering unity among parties, yet he faces unprecedented hostility from political adversaries.
A politician is under fire for his opaqueness in his actions and governance, yet it’s challenging for adversaries to persuade the public of wrongdoing.
A lover of massive infrastructure makes promises—tunnels, just like A Shadow Cast by Boris Johnson—that seem at best improbable. Someone who understands social media better than most of his contemporaries.
Could the political style and approach of Boris Johnson be helping Houchen, who Johnson put in the House of Lords, retain his mayoralty in the traditional heartland of Tees Valley for a third time despite the collapse of Tory support in the rest of the country?
At this point, the Tees Valley contest seems Houchen’s to lose.
He secured 73% of the of the votes during his re-election. At the time of writing, many think he’s got a good chance of holding on, including Labour campaign figures, some in the Labour leader’s office, Number 10 and CCHQ campaign team, and the Tory rebels evaluating whether to oust Rishi Sunak.
Some think a Houchen defeat
would be the most likely trigger for a proper effort to oust Sunak.
Sunak expressed support for Houchen’s campaign to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips during their weekend conversation, confident that Houchen would be declared the winner in the Tees Valley election on Friday.
The news went to Hartlepool in the Tees Valley, and we heard from a range of voters and their views of the Tories.
In many cases, they were damning about the party and its leader, Sunak. They told us that while Houchen was a “leader”, they “don’t think Rishi Sunak […] has proved that to anybody”.The community lauded Houchen for securing investments in the area and for his ability to make things happen.
People who said they would “never” vote Tory said they were likely to back Houchen. Some who had heard about the controversies around Teesworks, the regeneration project of the former Redcar Steelworks site, still indicated they would give him their support. A Shadow Cast by Boris Johnson
Houchen’s advocacy for Teesworks’ new freeport development led to controversy, as doubts emerged about the project.
The project saw private companies acquire a significant number of shares, in spite of the substantial investment of taxpayer dollars. An inquiry later found no evidence of “corruption or illegality” at the Teesworks site but did raise concerns over “transparency and oversight”.The chief person in their group assured the people of Tees Valley that their perspectives would be taken into account, despite their standpoint on Sunak.
The parallels run deep.
Houchen has promised a scoping review to see if there could be a tunnel from Hartlepool to Redcar, underneath the river and the port—a 12-mile project bigger than any in the UK that is likely to cost in the billions in the unlikely event it gets the go-ahead.
The scale of the ambition appears to inspire, even if few think it will ever emerge in practice. It is Johnson-politics to its core.
Down the other end of the “red wall”, the by-election in Blackpool South looks lost to the Tories, according to many we talked to.
Again, the presumption in Westminster in the various leaders’ offices is that it turns Labour—a seat won on the coattails of Johnson in 2019—into an emblem of the red wall returning home. With Johnson gone, so too are the Tory dreams of holding on to it.
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Some of those we spoke to in the games arcade on the seafront missed the big Johnson personality in their politics. The more technocratic approach of Sunak is not appear to give them much sense of figures fighting for their future. A Shadow Cast by Boris JohnsonThursday will be a moment of reckoning for all parties.With Boris Johnson gone, an age-old question presents itself: is the Conservative Party adrift without his leadership?
Full list of candidates for the Tees Valley mayor election and Blackpool South by-election
Tees Valley: Ben Houchen (Conservative), Chris McEwan (Labour), Simon Thorley (Lib Dems)
Blackpool South: Stephen Black (Independent), Mark Anthony Butcher (Reform UK), Andrew Kevin Cregan (Lib Dems), Howling Laud Hope (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party), David Jones (Conservative), Kim Sherrie Knight (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Damon Lee Sharp (NonPol), Ben Thomas (Green), Chris Webb (Labour)