Commissioned Book Review: Sebastian Payne, Broken Heartlands: A Journey Through Labour’s Lost England
| Author | Arthur Aitchison |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221075917 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(3) NP5 –NP6
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1075917PSW0010.1177/14789299221075917Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2022
Commissioned Book Review
Broken Heartlands: A Journey Through
Labour’s Lost England by Sebastian Payne
London: Pan Macmillian; Blackwells book store,
2021 432 pp., £19.75, ISBN: 9781529067361.
Sebastian Payne’s honest take on the 2019
General Election for the Labour Party is a
compelling addition to the British political lit-
erature. Payne’s book at face value examines
how the Labour Party lost its backbone ‘Red
Wall’ seats in the 2019 Election. He does this
by examining one constituency per chapter:
Gateshead, Blyth Valley, North-West Durham,
Sedgefield, Wakefield, Don Valley, Great
Grimsby, North-East Derbyshire, Coventry
Northwest, Heywood and Middleton and
finally Burnley.
Payne’s approach for writing his book was
to ‘pick ten constituencies that fit the red wall
criteria in different regions in England . . . in
an effort to answer a question: was 2019 a
fluke, or a realignment?’ (p. 35). I found
Payne’s chapter about Blyth Valley interesting
giving the context of the history of the constit-
uency and its reasoning for shifting conserva-
tive. Payne describes the town as industrialist
and traditional in its outlook, stating that
‘Throughout the twentieth century, its economy
was dominated by heavy industry: mining,
but also manufacturing’ (p. 41). Payne makes
the point to say that the two most prominent
employers within the areas (mining and dock
work) had been underfunded and closed
throughout the end of the twentieth century,
thus allowing the Labour Party to capitalise on
a sense of disconnection/mistreatment felt by
Blyth Valley, enabling Labour in the 1997
Election to win a majority of 17,736 with the
Conservative Party placing in a humble third
place. However, come the 2019 election the
Conservative candidate squeezed a victory of
712 votes. Payne’s argument for this change is
the thread that links all these constituencies
together, a rise in populism and/or patriotism.
With the Conservative Party campaign being
about levelling up and getting Brexit done,
they were able to consume UKIP voters as well
as claiming the Eurosceptic Labour voters who
wanted to see Brexit finalised; this was the
path to their success and Payne explores this
well.
Another interesting point Payne
addresses in the book is the swing Sedgef ield
constituency saw in 2019. Turning argua-
bly one of the most successful Labour
Prime Ministers former consistency
seats Conservative is no easy challenge.
Payne makes note that the city has been
gentrified over the past decades and the
local schools continuously rank high in
educational achievement. This develop-
ment and a change in social attitudes
assisted in developing Conservative sup-
port and deter away from traditional
Labour values. I found the discussion
Payne had with customers in a pub in
Durham interesting because their discus-
sion focused on ‘carpetbagging candi-
dates’. For context, these are Parliamentary
candidates who are not from the area and
are placed in to represent the constituency.
Sedgefield’s Conservative candidate Paul
Howell was local to area, which made
him more relatable to the constituency.
Payne opened up a conversation about
MPs and whether being from the area
you’re trying to represent makes a differ-
ence electorally. Payne writes that ‘many
of the newly elected Conservative MPs
are from the areas they represent’ (p.
107). This is an important observation
that could have been expanded more in
the book.
Payne highlights the core reasons for the
Heartlands turning away from Labour and
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