It is a cold and grey day in Redcar, and the seafront is almost deserted; the bingo halls and ice cream parlours are empty, and although it is lunchtime, even the fish and chip shops are quiet.
In contrast, Anna Turley’s campaign office in the centre of town is a hive of activity; volunteers are snacking on homemade banana bread in between phone calls to voters, a man in the corner is putting leaflets into rounds, and in the background is the near-constant buzz of the bell on the locked front door, as campaigners turn up for door-knocking sessions.
Long before it became party policy, there was a significant minority of the parliamentary Labour Party who were backing a second referendum, including many who represent constituencies that voted to leave the EU. Turley is one of them.
Redcar and Cleveland voted 66.2% in favour of leave, but she has long been one of Labour’s most prominent voices in the call for a second referendum. On Dec. 12 these candidates will see what their stance has cost them at the ballot box.
The Tories are predicted to significantly increase their share of the vote here and are in real contention for the first time in the seat’s history. According to the Conservative candidate, Jacob Young, it is Brexit that has “massively” changed the political landscape.
“I think it’s helped people get over some previous...blocks that were holding them back from voting for a different party to Labour,” he told BuzzFeed News.
“You’d knock on doors, and people used to talk about Margaret Thatcher all the time, and now they all talk about Brexit and how Labour won't give them Brexit, but the Tories will, and so it's been, I think, almost an enabling factor in allowing people to overcome those previous prejudices, and start to vote for a different party.”
Turley managed to sit down with BuzzFeed News for half an hour between campaigning sessions. She didn't dispute the fact that her Brexit position is at odds with the views of a lot of her constituents but, contrary to Young’s claims, said that she’s found that this election is about far more than Brexit.
“The things people want to talk about, the huge thing I really found on the doorstep and always have done is, is really the impact of austerity, so people really desperately struggling,” she said, adding that schools and the NHS are raised a lot too.
“When this election was called, my heart sank, because I just really wanted us to resolve Brexit, and had been very clear that we needed to resolve Brexit before we got to a general election,” Turley said, “because that is the question that needs fixing. The general election, so many other issues come in, and people vote on different stuff.
“So I was really annoyed, having an election full stop without resolving this. But it's actually not been as bad as I expected. The beginning was kind of a bit grumpy. We had one incident where someone kind of came out of a house and shouted at one of my volunteers. But other than that it's been absolutely fine.”
Forty miles up the coast in Sunderland, Julie Elliott, the Labour candidate in Sunderland Central, has encountered a little more hostility. In the first week of the campaign, her office window was smashed, in what police described as an “intentional act of criminal damage.”
In Sunderland, like in Redcar, there is a definitive majority for leave — the result here was 61.3% in favour of exiting the European Union. Elliott was another of the Labour MPs who came out in favour of a so-called “People’s Vote.”
According to the Brexit Party candidate, Viral Parikh — who was quick to condemn the attacks on Elliott — the EU will be a big issue at this election. “I think it’s of massive, massive importance,” he said.
“I’ve knocked on 5,000 to 7,000 doors. Let me be clear, people are absolutely angry. People are angry because the democracy, what we believe in, that’s not been fulfilled..”
My office was attacked on Saturday night - anyone with information please contact the police on 101
When BuzzFeed News visited Elliott a fortnight after the attack, the window had been repaired, but there was no longer any branding on the office, bar a plain piece of A4 paper advising constituents that, due to the election, she is not currently an MP.
“There is definitely a hostility and that’s been the last two or three years, since the referendum,” she told BuzzFeed News. “There is an element, it’s not a large element, and actually most decent people whatever their politics are very, very against it and very protective. We had a lot of nice messages after the attack.”
It hasn’t been the only incident either. “A house that has my posters in, somebody threw a brick at their window,” she said.
“That’s definitely something that’s changed. It’s all part of the general kind of hostility that’s going on, particularly against women MPs, and against women candidates as we are at the minute. It’s not a nice time to be in politics on that front.”
The level of hostility that MPs were facing online over the course of the last Parliament had left politicians and activists terrified about a winter election, with its short days and dark nights.
There have been incidents of violence and harassment on the campaign trail, which have caused serious concern to candidates, but some previously feared the situation could be even worse.
Heartbroken to hear from one of my volunteers who has been assaulted today, in broad daylight, while delivering leaflets. I'm grateful to @CheshirePolice who are dealing with it, and I hope candidates and supporters of all parties will join me in condemning this act of cowardice.
The online trolls have continued their harassment of candidates, but many have been relieved to find that the abuse has not often crossed over into the physical sphere.
“The worst period actually was around March,” Turley said. “When we didn't leave, there was a huge amount of stuff on social media. There's a horrible Facebook site about me called Turley Out, which is just full of nasty, toxic, horrible crap.
“They held a couple of rallies against me, which was just about 12 people, that was organised really, by the far right. [They’re] targeting female MPs in constituencies across the North East. They didn't go to Phil Wilson or Paul Williams, or anyone else that was for a second referendum, they went to me, Helen Goodman, Bridget [Phillipson]. So that was a bit kind of unpleasant.”
“It’s online more than anywhere else,” Elliott agreed. “In general on the doorstep, people are pleased to see you, whether they agree with you or not.”
“You get an odd person who’s very aggressive on the doorstep,” she added, “and it probably is a little more than it was 10 years ago, but it’s more the online stuff, the certain groups.
“Those people have always been there, but social media has given them a platform. So they’re the type of people who would’ve still had those views and been aggressive, but they would have had their five or six friends in the pub, where now they’ve got a platform.”
“I think that's sadly where some of the debate does cross the line,” the Labour candidate in Houghton and Sunderland South Bridget Phillipson told BuzzFeed News, over lunch in a tearoom in the constituency.
“It's not face-to-face, when you speak to people. It's not when you’re knocking on doors, it's not when I’m out in Houghton walking through the town. It's some of the online stuff where people feel that they can hide behind a persona, often anonymous.”
“I'd be happy to have that conversation with people if they’d be prepared to step away from behind the computer screen,” she added, “because I don't expect that I'm suddenly going to persuade everybody to feel the same way as me.
“But I think what, what makes democracy important is that the ability to discuss things properly and the merits, and not just throw around abuse. And ultimately what goes on online is just insults and abuse and it's not proper discussion.”
Like her colleagues, Phillipson has made her views on Brexit clear - she thinks that leaving the EU will be harmful to the local economy and she wants a second referendum. And she knows that risks making her unpopular with some of her voters.
“There have been Conservative MPs here before, but not since the 1960s,” the Tory candidate Christopher Howarth told BuzzFeed News. “It is a traditional Labour voting area, but because of Brexit and because the MPs have gone against the will of their electors, have effectively turned round to them and said ‘you’re stupid, we think we know better’ people are feeling disconnected, so the traditional loyalties are breaking down, which means it’s more unpredictable than it has been in the past.”
However, Phillipson said that she would never tell someone they were wrong to vote the way they did - but only tries to explain the reasons why she disagreed.
“I won’t always change people's minds,” she said. “And you know, many people feel strongly that leave was the right choice then, and the right choice now, but we can agree to disagree.
“And often those same voters will say that they still don't agree with me on Brexit, but they'll still be voting Labour because they think that there's more at stake in this election than just Brexit.”
Although Labour is still projected to win these seats, the MRP poll — which correctly predicted the result of the 2017 election — only has them down as “likely Labour,” rather than the safe Labour seats they once were.
But despite the online harassment, the rallies, the occasional hostility on the doorsteps, and the Conservative vote share steadily eating into their majorities, these women are united in the fact that they stand by the positions they have taken, and even with the benefit of hindsight, they still wouldn’t do anything differently.
“I believe that the responsibility of politicians is to seek to do the right thing, and that's not always the easy choice,” Phillipson said. “It wasn't an easy decision to arrive at the conclusion that we needed to have a referendum to try and settle the issue of Brexit and to give the people the final say, but I still believe it is the right way through this.
“And regardless of the outcome of the election. I think the final say on Brexit should rest with the British people because it's an issue that can define our country for generations to come.”
Turley, similarly, say she doesn’t have any regrets about the position she has taken — even though it hasn’t always been easy. “No, not at all,” she said. “Not at all, because I just think you can't lie to people.
“You've got to be honest about the impact, and my frustration is, I've already been in for four and a half years, I came in and three months after I got elected, the steelworks was closed and 3,000 people lost their jobs, and I fought really hard and I always kind of prided myself on being on the side of the community and being on people's side, and that was what I was really proud of.
“My frustration with Brexit is that it in a way it's sort of tried to put a wedge between me and the community. And so I had to make that decision, do I risk being seen as not on their side, but the reality is, everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect jobs, and industries, and the economy.”
“I have absolutely no regrets on the stance I’ve taken, at all,” Elliott added. “It’s been the right thing to do.”
At times it has been difficult, she said — there have been court cases where people have been found guilty of malicious communications against her and her staff. But still she wouldn’t change her view, saying that the harassment has the “ absolute opposite” effect.
“To me, these people are just bullies and you don’t give in to bullies, you just carry on,” she said. “You don’t take risks, you look after your safety, but it certainly wouldn’t alter what I do. I’ll still do what I do, I’ll still knock on as many doors, do all of those things, but you’ve just got to be a bit more careful about how you do them.”
“It’s like bullies in a school playground,” she added. “It would just make me more determined. And all of the women I know from all parties in Parliament, we all feel the same about that.”
