Now running as Reform UK’s candidate for Greater Lincolnshire Mayor, Jenkyns is at the British Steel mills on the edge of Scunthorpe to add her voice to concerns about its future. With only two working furnaces it nowadays employs 3,000 people. Although still the biggest local employer, it once supported around thirty times as many workers.
“Labour voters are coming over to Reform,” she said, comparing the party’s appeal to former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher. It’s “a bit like Thatcher did – she pulled in both directions. Thatcher was the kind of leader we need in Britain at the moment.”
Jenkyns, a former Tory MP, has voiced concerns over the future of Scunthorpe SteelworksThe mayoralty is a new post, part of the Government’s plans to devolve power to the regions, ranging across a huge area stretching from the Humber to the Wash, taking in historic Lincoln, plus Skegness and Grimsby on the coast.
It’s an area crying out for investment. The steelworks are in discussion with government about keeping manufacturing in the UK, alongside securing investment to help them move to electric arc furnaces as part of wider decarbonisation plans.
“Devolution offers the opportunity to improve that performance, but scope for seeing improvements is probably not going to be as great as in some of the devolved areas, like Greater Manchester, for example. It’s a rural area so its ability to attract high-skill, high-pay firms is more limited than the bigger cities.”
Scunthorpe town centre is largely empty of shoppers. The wind knocks over three standalone signs advertising nail bars. Plastic bags, leaves and beer cans twist together like water down a plughole. Nevertheless, it still boasts some big names including Boots, Vodafone and Hay’s Travel agency that have disappeared from other high streets.
At The Tavern pub, where a pint of John Smiths is £2.30, retired steelworker Paul Wilson is sitting at the bar. The 63-year-old used to be a Labour voter, but pro-Brexit, he voted Conservative in 2019 before switching to Reform at July’s general election.
Scunthorpe is a “shithole,” he added. “People don’t like living here any more.”
Alec Gibson, a retired electrician, has lived in Scunthorpe since the 60s
“There’s a lot of foreigners in the town. They stay on their own. They all live in one place… I’m not racist at all, but people stick together. We’re just the same.”
Javed Khan is opening up his charity drop-in centre for young people with mental health problems, called Bismillah United, in a closed-down branch of Top Man. A sign for the changing rooms still dangles from the ceiling.
Javed Khan, who has lived in Scunthorpe for the last 30 years, at his charity drop-in centre for young people with mental health problemsAsked if the community is integrated, he replied “no” but blamed all the mainstream political parties for stirring up tensions. “Racial tensions are all created,” he said, before turning his focus to the Reform UK leader. “Nigel Farage is a great salesman. I was a salesman, and I was told if there was a need, all well and good, but if there isn’t a need, create one.”
Vicky Plumtree, a youth work manager at Café Indie
When asked how she will vote in May’s mayoral election, she said: “I will not ever vote for Reform. She said she also would not be voting Conservative over cuts to youth services in the area.
Plumtree’s comments are reflective of the country’s highly divided electorate, with no party currently holding a significant lead in the polls.
Jason Lockwood, the Labour candidate, denied it is a two-horse race between the Conservatives and Reform. Lockwood, an entrepreneur and former chairman of Grimsby Town FC, says he is representing Labour out of loyalty to the party and its values. However, he’s also seeking to present himself as a political outsider as Starmer flails in the polls.
At The Pink Pig Farm outside Scunthorpe, young mothers sip lattes at the café and browse the gift shop. Sally Jackson, 61, the manager, voted Labour at the general election but is now rueing her choice after changes to farmers’ inheritance tax, alongside a rise in business national insurance contributions and the increased cost of the minimum wage.
Sally Jackson, a manager at the Pink Pig Farm outside ScunthorpeAlthough she won’t be voting for Reform herself in May, she predicted the party would pick up support, as she believes Kemi Badenoch’s Tories are focusing too much on the south of the country.
Standing for the Conservatives is Rob Waltham, currently leader of North Lincolnshire Council. He will be running a local campaign to boost skills, improve flood defences and stop the blight of pylons. On Reform, he argued that “other than on national issues, I’m not sure what they stand for” and that a vote for Jenkyns could end up splitting the vote and boosting Labour.
Back at the steel plant on the edge of Scunthorpe, in her PPE, visor and hard hat, Jenkyns sounded the same warning – a vote for the Tories would split the Reform vote, she noted. As May’s mayoral election gets closer, it’s an argument Lincolnshire’s voters will be hearing a lot more.
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