Constituency profile: Conservatives look close in Croydon

Croydon Central is a place of contrasts. Resting between the Labour and Conservative safe seats of Croydon North and Croydon South, Croydon Central is a critical marginal that has all the hallmarks of a post-industrial English landscape: mock Tudor suburbs and leafy golf clubs are nearby council housing estates and post-war prefabs. The urban wards are demographically diverse, like much of inner city London, but areas such as New Addington and Field Way are home to a large population of white working class Croydoners. The suburban areas, meanwhile, are populated by many affluent commuters, who use the East Croydon train station connecting Greater London’s second most populous town with the rest of the city.

The town is currently at the centre of a great demographic surge of expansion. In 1991, the population of Croydon as a whole was just under over 300,000. Today, according to the Office for National Statistics, Croydon’s population is expected to surpass 400,000 by 2021. This dramatic expansion has brought with it its own familiar problems. Infrastructure – ranging from the town’s tram system to its hospitals, schools and social housing – has been put under strain.

Croydon Central is also one of the seats that lies at the heart of the upcoming 2019 election. In 2015, in a closely-fought contest, the Conservative candidate, Gavin Barwell, took the seat by just 145 votes, a mirror of the whisker-thin majority won by David Cameron overall. In 2017, national trends were reflected to the detriment of the Tories. The crushing of the Liberal Democrat vote (just 1.9%, and a lost deposit) coincided with a late Labour surge to give the Labour candidate Sarah Jones a 9% swing, and the seat along with it.

Mario Creatura is the Conservative party candidate hoping to beat the incumbent Labour MP. Mario, whose father was an Italian migrant to the UK, was born in Croydon’s May Day hospital and grew up in Addiscombe.

Creatura campaigned for Remain in 2016, but, as all Tory candidates now do, he backs Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The Conservatives’ national message of “Get Brexit Done” ties in well with local concerns, he claims. “We’ve spent three years not focussing on domestic priorities that actually help people’s lives materially,” he said. “Most people just want to get on with the stuff that matters to them”.

The estimates from 2016 suggest Croydon Central voted to Leave the EU by the small majority of 50.31%, a figure just below the national average of 52%.

Creatura is more enthusiastic about the announcement by the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, that there will be £12.7 million of investment in an upgrade of the critical care units in Croydon University hospital.

Someone who is also passionate about improving local infrastructure is Simon Sprague, the Liberal Democrat candidate who is eager to make improvements on his party’s dismal performance in 2017. Simon, who grew up in the area, speaks of his ambition to improve waste management and local public services.

The message of his party, Stopping Brexit, is the antithesis of the Conservative party policy. But, he believes that this could assist his party in regaining ground lost in 2015 and 2017. When I asked him whether his party’s stance would be a help or a hindrance in the seat, Simon said that he believes that “demographic changes” in the last three years have combined with “a national swing in favour of Remain” to change the circumstances in Croydon. He believes that his party now has the ability to attract votes from both Labour and the Conservatives.

This may well be the ambition, but reports of polling for Croydon South suggests that a resurgent Liberal Democrat vote presents a greater threat to the pro-Remain incumbent in Croydon Central, Labour’s Sarah Jones. The Lib Dem vote has bounced back to around 12%, and if this resurgence holds firm over the next four weeks, it looks more likely than not that the Conservatives will take the seat.

Sarah Jones MP was unavailable for interview, and no-one from her team would comment. What is clear is that this will be a tricky election for her party if the current trends continue – the woeful Lib Dem performance from 2017 cannot be taken for granted this time. Jones is also in a difficult position within her own party – she is, by inclination, a centre-left candidate, a Milibandite and not a Corbynista.

What are the people of Croydon Central saying about all this?

I spoke with one cabbie who was born in Westminster but now works in the Croydon area. He has been voting Labour for his whole adult life. Now, he says, he intends to vote Conservative. “I can’t stand Corbyn, he thinks we’re stupid and can’t see what he’s doing on Brexit.” What does he like about Boris Johnson? “He reminds me of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher”.

I also spoke to a carer in her late twenties who works for the NHS in the Croydon area. She said that she was generally sceptical about promises made by the Labour and the Conservatives on NHS spending. She has voted for both Labour and the Conservatives in the past, but is now disenchanted with the two main parties. She voted Remain in 2016, but says that this isn’t her main voting priority. Instead, she will be voting Green because of her concerns about the environment.

On the ground, Mario Creatura for the Tories was out in the Field Way estate, in New Addington last week. This is estate is home to about 10,000 people, and there are council houses alongside semi-detached house properties which have been privately owned since the 1980s. It is not necessary to travel to Workington in Cumbria to learn about the concerns of white working-class English voters. I saw for myself that the archetype of the new blue-collar Conservative voter could just as easily be labelled as Addington Man – there is a similar revolution rumbling beneath the surface of the polls in this estate.

It was impossible to avoid the general impression from the doorstep conversations I heard that the Conservatives are indeed gaining ground in traditional Labour territories. When Creatura knocked on one door in New Addington, he was warmly met by an elderly man who said that he and his wife are voting Conservative. The man has been a Unite union member for several decades. This type of phenomenon seems to be quite common in the area.

There are signs too that the Conservatives are succeeding in winning Brexit party supporters over to Johnson’s deal. Several voters when quizzed said that they had voted for the Brexit party in the European elections in May 2019, but they are now worried about splitting the Leave vote.

At the same time, those voters who went for Labour in 2017 seem to be more hesitant, often describing themselves as “undecided” or as “considering” their vote.

One voter, who is originally from West Africa but has lived in New Addington for twelve years, said that he had voted to Remain, and thinks that a second referendum is necessary. He added that, while he had voted for Labour in 2017, he now believes that the Liberal Democrats are more in line with his convictions.

There are also local political issues which might sap the Labour vote where the party needs it most. A few houses down, another voter answered the door. She is 34 and used to work as an A&E receptionist. She voted both for Remain in 2016 and for Labour in 2017. Now, however, she has been put off voting Labour by the unpopular plans of the local council to build new council flats on the greenbelt that surrounds New Addington. The council, which represents all the wards across Croydon’s three constituencies, is currently controlled by the local Labour party.

This policy has proven to be controversial amongst those who bought homes in the area because of its large number of open spaces. It is a classic case of a local issue cutting across national political divides. The unpopularity of Croydon council’s plans might be enough to make some voters who turned out for Labour in 2017 think twice.

From visits to constituencies such as Croydon Central, it is possible to discern the outline of the broader national picture. If repeated across Labour-Conservative marginals being targeted by Boris Johnson, it could mean the Tory leader wins.

Whatever the final result, it is clear that a quiet revolution has taken place. The Conservatives pitching themselves as the patriotic choice does seem to be appealing to many more working-class voters than has been the case for several decades.

CROYDON CENTRAL

 RESULT IN 2017:

Labour Gain: Majority of 5,652 (71.3% turnout)

Sarah Jones (Lab) – 52.3% (+9.7)

Gavin Barwell (Con)  – 42.4% (-0.6%)

Gill Hickson (LD) – 1.9% (-0.3%)

Peter Staveley (UKIP) – 1.8% (-7.3%)

Tracey Hague (Green) – 1.1% (-1.6%)

CANDIDATES IN 2019:

Sarah Jones MP (Lab)

Mario Creatura (Con)

Simon Sprague (LD)

Esther Sutton (Green)

Peter Sonnex (Brexit Party)