Even in Jo Cox’s old seat they’re laughing Corbyn out of town

THE man in the dispensing chemist on Commercial Roa d was struggling for breath. But he finally managed to get his words out. ‘I’ve always been Labour,’ he said ‘But not this time. Not for Corbyn.’

Was his an isolated view? ‘Everyone round by me is the same. The man couldn’t organise…’ he paused, searching for the most polite phrasing, ‘… a drink-up in a brewery.’

I’m in Batley, West Yorkshire, nominal Labour majority of 6,000. It’s the seat that was brutally thrown into the national spotlight by the murder of Jo Cox, and on paper should be rock-solid Labour.

The last time people here voted Conservative was a quarter of a century ago. Since then they’ve stayed loyal through the decline of Blairism, the dead-hand of Brownism and the tragi-comedy of Milibandism. But no longer.

In the Corner Cafe, sepia-toned pictures transport customers back to what isn’t a different era but a different world. The tram is long gone. The market – ‘ It used to stretch all the way up the hill to the baths’ – is now just a handful of stalls. The great mill chimneys that stood sentinel over the town have been demolished.

They should be weighing Labour votes here. But instead they’re repeating phrases from a Tory canvasser’s handbook. ‘I’ve voted Labour all my life, but this time I’m voting May,’ says a cafe regular. ‘So is my husband.’

Why the change? ‘She speaks her mind. And Corbyn wouldn’t defend the country.’

Before I came to Batley, I’d been hearing increasingly wild stories about feedback on the doorsteps. One Tory MP told me any seat with a Labour majority of 8,000 or less was a target. Labour MPs said they were drawing that line at 10,000.

Then I was told about the Bunker Project. So great is the potential scale of the meltdown, Labour moderates have identified a select group of MPs whose seats must be defended at all costs. They will receive additional financial resources and extra activists.

‘It’s like selecting the people who will survive a nuclear war,’ a Labour insider told me. The list includes Yvette Cooper – a future leadership favourite – former chief whip Rosie Winterton and deputy leader Tom Watson.

Tracy Brabin, pictured, does not have access to the Bunker. The former Coronation Street actress succeeded Jo Cox in a by-election that was essentially a memorial campaign – out of respect, none of the other major parties fielded candidates. Born and bred locally, she has quickly won a reputation as a hard-working, unfussy MP. But she is fighting this Election with a Corbynite millstone round her neck. ‘I can’t factor that in,’ she says defiantly. ‘I have to focus on me, and what I’ve done for the past six months to prove myself.’

She has no plans to put her leader on her leaflets and there are no plans for a visit. Which is just as well. Mention his name and reactions range from laughter – ‘You’re joking!’ – to mockery: ‘He’s doolally.’ Occasionally the Yorkshire sense of fair play steps in. ‘I don’t like the way that Eton chunterer [Boris Johnson] was talking about him. There’s no need to be abusive,’ one man told me. Would it affect how he voted? ‘ No, I ’ m voting Tory,’ he responded.

And that’s what should be terrifying Labour. Even where people aren’t falling for Theresa May’s charms, their response is abstention rather than a Labour vote.

The woman running the Market Square fruit stall told me about her daughters at college struggling to pay rent, and fear of the outright destruction of the NHS. Then admitted: ‘I’m not voting for anyone.’

There’s something else t hat should be striking fear into the heart of Tracy Brabin and her colleagues. I was expecting to encounter a shy-Tory phenomenon. But I found the opposite. When the woman in the market told me: ‘I don’t like Theresa May,’ a customer on a neighbouring stall made a point of shouting: ‘Well I do!’

People are taking pride in their rejection of Corbyn’s Labour. Of course things may change. Caught unawares by the Election, the local Tory campaign is a mess. No candidate has been selected, no canvassing is under way. But if the Election was held tomorrow, Labour would undoubtedly lose.

Which on one level is fair enough. As I wrote last week, Labour must now face a reckoning. But there’s still something depressing about standing in what should be a safe Labour seat, 100 yards from the recently renamed Jo Cox House, to be told: ‘Labour are no different now. They all pee in the same pot.’

As I was heading back to the station, a Labour MP texted me. ‘People are focusing on the Lib Dems and Ukip. But the best kept secret of this Election is how many traditional working-class Labour voters are switching direct to the Tories.’

It’s not a secret to the people of Batley.