Economic migrants put up in hotels while ex-soldiers end up homeless  - Tories are traitors to the Red Wall, blasts Simon Danczuk

With half-a-dozen local residents, the conversation turned to the Tory Government. Whilst I disagree about the pastry, I have to agree with everyone’s view on Rishi Sunak – he’s failing.

Sunak is failing on the economy, immigration, defense, net zero and wokery. He’s failing places like Milnrow, he’s failing the red wall.

The cost of living crisis is felt doubly hard in red wall seats. People already living on tight budgets feel every mortgage rate rise acutely. A winter of horrific energy prices combined with outrageous supermarket price increases mean people are going without.

Most red wall voters wanted Brexit done but the Conservative Government has failed to drop all the EU regulations. Instead of a Brexit bonus, we have British business hamstrung by many of the same rules as before.

With Brexit as much about immigration, red wall voters expected a dramatic reduction in the number of people coming to the UK. Instead they’ve seen numbers dramatically increase. In places like Rochdale, there’s been waves of migrants coming from Pakistan and Bangladesh for many years.

Recently, the town has taken more asylum seekers than nearly any other place in the UK. Sunak’s failure to stop the boats goes down particularly badly in the red wall.

Then there’s issues as diverse as net zero, defence and the culture wars.

Most people where I come from in Lancashire cannot comprehend all the nonsense talked about transgender, transitioning, and pronouns.

Most people have always accepted that there are men who identify as women, and it’s never been an issue. Seeing a Conservative Government – of all governments – overseeing Stonewall’s dominance in public services, children being given puberty blockers, or diversity officers recruited at taxpayer’s expense seems an anathema.

Many red wall towns have solid connections to the military, they’ve been strong recruiting grounds.

The Fusiliers are particularly linked to places like Bury and Rochdale. So, the shrinking of our armed forces, privatisation of recruitment, and bizarre ethnicity and gender quotas are a puzzlement particularly to white working-class people.

They ask: ‘What’s the point of having a Conservative PM if he’s not interested in putting King and Country first?’

The contrast is also quickly made between how we treat illegal immigrants in comparison to our military veterans. Economic migrants are put up in three- and four-star hotels, whilst ex-soldiers, struggling to cope with civvy life, end up homeless and are left to fend for themselves on our streets. The Government’s priorities are all wrong.

Regarding net zero, most people in red wall seats, and beyond, want to do right by the environment, they do their bit, and often more.

But they don’t have the transport network of Greater London, they need their car to get to work, or their van is part of their work. And they appreciate getting abroad once or twice a year and aren’t happy about being taxed on flights.

With manufacturing jobs much more prominent in red wall areas people also don’t appreciate ridiculous net zero targets which are making us increasingly uncompetitive with countries like China and India. There’s something masochistic about creating our own barriers to economic success.

Just like the regulars in the Moon spinners, people in red wall seats undoubtedly feel betrayed by the Tories. Many took a chance on them in 2019, after all the failures, they won’t be taking a chance on them in 2024.

Simon Danczuk is Reform UK activist and former Labour MP for Rochdale.