Brent voters have their say ahead of polling day

In a north London borough where voter turnout is often on the low side, it was perhaps unsurprising that the overwhelming response from residents asked for their views on the impending general election was “I’m not bothered “. The three seats up for grabs in Brent are safe Labor territories, but the mood is palpably apathetic, so it’s probably lucky for the party that what unites voters is anger at the Tories.

According to Electoral Calculus – an “opinion poll” used to predict the outcome of an election – the newly named seats of Brent East (formerly Brent Central) and Brent West (formerly Brent North) will both be comfortably held by incumbents. Dawn Butler and Barry Gardiner respectively. The newest seat, Queen’s Park and Maida Vale, is also tipped to be won by Labor candidate Georgia Gould.

In the 2019 general election, only around 60% of Brent voters went to the polls and it doesn’t look like that will change tomorrow (July 4). If anything, the past five years seem to have fueled a greater apathy and distrust of politics in general.

Richard, 74, said the cost of living had hit the country hard and Brent was no exception. Richard feels that wages need to rise to lift the burden on those who have been hardest hit. He said: “With taxes in this country, with VAT and everything, I can’t see the price of food going down, the only thing that can go up is wages. I’m retired so it doesn’t really affect me but young people need to earn a decent wage to live their lives. (…) I always hope that things will change for the benefit of the public.”

Polls have long predicted a Labor victory, the only thing in question is the extent of the Tories’ defeat. The party looks set to lose votes it won from the former “red wall” in 2019 back to Labour, with many blue southern seats expected to go to the Lib Dems. But it is probably the possibility of being overtaken to the right by Nigel Farage’s UK Reform party that could do the most damage to Tory seat numbers.

Graham, 60, and his wife Karen, 58, who both voted for Brexit, told LDRS they felt “betrayed” by the Tories and that any recent progress was “too little , too late”.

Talk of immigration dominated the election, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak putting ‘Stop The Boats’ at the forefront of his campaign. But Graham believes the Navy should patrol the English Channel to stop boat crossings.

He said: “The French are supposed to block the boats but everyone is coming. (…) In my eyes, we should have our navy patrolling the Channel. (…) I agree that we need people here because we have our lazy people in the country who don’t want to work. Doing the fields or whatever, cleaning the toilets, our crowd doesn’t want to do that for some reason.”

With his Brexit vote in mind, Graham offered a somewhat surprising suggestion to solve some of the problems facing the country. He said: “You can go back to the EU because the old people in the country have ruined it for the younger people. The reason we did (Brexit) was because we wanted the borders to be closed, but they messed that up.”

With the magnitude of both a Labor victory and a Tory defeat expected, some residents see this election as an opportunity to support a smaller party, as a way to pressure the government to focus more on the issues that consider them most important, such as climate change. and voting reform.

Nick, 51, said he would judge the next government on criteria such as child poverty, clean rivers and a more cohesive society, which he suggested had been “made worse” by the Tory government. He said: “We are clearly a poorer nation, (…) there is more deprivation, I see more homeless people, I see the state of the public realm, I see public services – the NHS, libraries, we are clearly worse off. (…) It was a disaster.”

The shadow of Covid still looms large for some voters and will affect their decision on polling day, there is particular anger that people have been left to die alone in hospital corridors and at Downing Street parties that have taken place during the lockdown. Ena, 62, said the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, “didn’t care” about the public.

She told LDRS: “I’m still so angry about what happened during Covid. About all of us who had people who died, people in hospitals at the time who didn’t get care, who couldn’t get their family to come in and see them. Those who were left to die alone in horrific circumstances, this should not have happened.”

Tomorrow, voters will be asked to take a look at all the candidates running locally and tick the box of the one they think represents their views and will most effectively support them at Westminster over the next five years. Click Here to see all the candidates standing over Brent.