The wealthy village of Bolton Percy is a tiny North Yorkshire idyll with only one bus (the number 27, which comes every two hours) and where the post office is open only once a week, during a four-hour window on a Wednesday. It is a place where residents have neat gardens and fancy cars, and the friendly local church, which will celebrate its 600th birthday next year, is the social hub. In other words, it is exactly the kind of place the Tories could normally rely on for an abundance of support. After the Selby and Ainsty MP, Nigel Adams – a Boris Johnson ally – resigned over the weekend after being snubbed for a peerage, a byelection was triggered. It should be cut and dry. Since the constituency was created in 2010, it has been solidly Conservative. Adams had 60% of the vote in 2019, a proportion that had increased with every general election, rising even during the 2017 election, when the Tory vote share dropped in most English constituencies. But on a hot and sunny Monday, it was clear that something had changed. Residents spoke in hushed tones about abandoning the Tories, keen to air their views but unwilling to be named or pictured for fear of those views being exposed to their neighbours.
“I’ve been a Conservative voter but not over the last few years,” said a retired man outside his cottage, with a garden of pink roses welcoming buzzing bumblebees. “I’m frightened at the state of the country. The cabinet have no principles – it’s a complete clown show and that’s before you get into questions of integrity. “They’re squabbling like rats in a sack.” Johnson (“a nasty piece of work”) had caused damage to the country that “will take a lifetime to undo, if it can ever be undone”. Adams was fully implicated as “one of Boris’s bag carriers”. “A lot of people might vote Labour as a protest vote at how disgusted they are at the moment,” he said. A neighbour, who lived in a grand stone house down a winding country lane, said what people wanted was “caring conservatism”, which they were not seeing much of under the “amateurish” Tory cabinet. “There’s a cancer in there that’s working against good government,” he said. “They are utterly obsessed with celebrity, rather than the issues. The economy is in a bad way, we’re hanging on by our fingernails, and I’d like to see politicians dealing with it.” He thought Keir Starmer’s Labour look like a government in waiting, adding: “They’re bright people, not stupid. They bring a degree of serious thought, they’re more thoughtful and measured.” So how would he be voting? “Having voted Tory all my life, anyone but Tory,” he said. “It’s amazing how you can shift from being true blue. But I don’t think I’ve changed. It’s this immature government with populist leaders.”
It was a message that local Labour organisers on the doorsteps had seized upon on a scorching afternoon in Selby, briefing doorknockers to remind voters that Adams was “mates with Boris”. In lieu of a candidate – Labour selection will happen on Thursday – they were joined by Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, who said, “unapologetically”, that they had been stringent about vetting. Would he agree that the party is losing potential voters by shifting the party towards the centre? “We have to be pretty clear about the change we’re making, in order to get people back, and there will be some people further to the left who’ll say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t want that compromise’, but unfortunately, that is the only way Labour wins the general election.”
It is palpable that despite a loss of support for the Conservatives, this will be a hard seat to win for Labour. Streeting focuses on rising mortgage rates when he speaks to voters, a good call in a place where nearly three-quarters of people own their own home. More than a quarter of people in the Selby council district are retired and the age profile is creeping up as youngsters increasingly desert the town for nearby York or Leeds. A boundary review will see it split at next year’s general election, with the posh villages such as Bolton Percy annexed, making the seat considerably more winnable for Labour. It was clear their eyes were on general election. “It’s all to play for,” Streeting said. Labour were all smiles in their working-class heartland with steadfast support on the doors and the only moment of unease came from a little boy whose water pistol pointed threateningly at the shadow cabinet member’s crotch. But to Streeting’s relief, he turned his weapon on the Guardian’s photographer instead. • This article was amended on 14 June 2023. An earlier version said that Wes Streeting was answering the question: “Was this to weed out any candidates who were too leftwing?” instead of: “Would he agree that the party is losing potential voters by shifting the party towards the centre?”.