Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty ‘Marginal’ Britain The fate of a nation rests in a handful of swing seats.

CRAWLEY, UK — I drive out of London, leaving the nation’s political bubble behind. This election is galloping ahead and the talk is all about the “marginals” — the few places where votes actually count.

The chatter is intense. The race is neck and neck.

Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system divides the country into safe seats — where the vote is seen as predetermined in outcome and next to no campaigning takes place — and the few, less than a third of all seats in the House of Commons, that swing between Labour and the Conservatives.

The truth is only in these latter places do votes make a difference.

The three percent swing vote in the 100 most “marginal” constituencies will decide the result — the votes, that is, of 135,000 people. The rest are of minimal importance: As many as 70 percent of seats have not changed hands in an election since 1950.

***

Many of these “marginals” are motorway towns, where social roots run shallow. This is why I am driving into Crawley along an enormous curving tarmac, lined by pylons and sound barriers. Overhead, I spot the planes heading to Gatwick Airport, London’s second hub, that employs much of the town.

Crawley has voted for the winner in Westminster for decades. The car glides past leafy streets of 1950s semi-detached houses. Crawley is one of the “New Towns,” built mostly by tens of thousands of Irish migrant workers after the war to clear the Victorian slums of London.

There is a caricature in the bubble of the country: London, ethnic — England, white. But actually the population of England was only 79% white British in 2011 — down from 87% in 2001. This excludes illegal immigrants and recent arrivals.

Crawley has that profile: with a stream of mostly South Asian families from gritty South West London moving out, and up in the world, into Crawley.

I park near a Sikh temple, facing an enormous ASDA grocery store, and track down the Labour team. This is where I meet Chris Oxlade, the party’s candidate. He needs to win, not for himself — he’s doing fine as a councilor and local radio star — but for Labour. Unless the party can win in places like Crawley, it faces a full decade in the wilderness. As its support unravels in Scotland and among England’s white working class, many insiders fear Labour might not survive.

Unlike many British politicians, who are HQ favorites parachuted into safe seats, Oxlade is rare in running in his own hometown. And today, like yesterday and tomorrow, he is knocking on doors in a leafy suburb of pebbledash bungalows, as I lurk behind him, taking notes.

Mrs. Khan opens the door in her apron.

“The people are not sure what to choose. The economy’s good now and when Labour was there it was really bad. Last time I didn’t want to vote: I was confused. I could never vote Conservative so I just didn’t make a vote. So I might not vote.”

She listens intently to Oxlade as he talks schools.

Two doors down, Oxlade meets some Conservative voters. A dyed-blonde woman, just into middle age, begins to gripe. “The hospital is completely inadequate, something needs to be done. The public services are really awful.”

Oxlade knocks again.

A young, slim, Asian woman, in a sash opens the door. She answers:

“Can’t vote. I am not from here, no, bye.”

***

There is something slightly sinister about campaigning with a candidate. The party activists — mainly Labour councilors or those who want to be Labour councilors — walk around with lists of addresses of who votes for whom — and direct their man to the undecided based on their extensive intelligence.

“Further on Chris, it’s number 27.”

We wander on a bit, and meet a retired white man clambering out of his Ford Focus. He enthusiastically chats to Oxlade. He teases him: “All the birds and the seagulls are tweeting UKIP in me garden.”

And then gets his views out.

“I’m voting Labour. But I’d like to see a three-way coalition really. They are all like each other, really. I’m just sick and tired of each party blaming the other one for what’s wrong with the country — it’s not that party’s fault, it’s just the way the country is. It’s the fault of them greedy bankers...who should just be locked up in prison I tell ya...that the country’s in this shit.”

Oxlade nods. It is a careful nod.

“And Miliband, he thinks he can’t tell the truth and be elected. Well, I don’t think so. I think if a politician did actually tell the truth, he’d be elected.” He refers to Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband.

There is a deep, beautiful, civility in this suburban street. But we are not targeting the normal people of Crawley. It is a carefully data-mined list of that three percent who swing.

The doors Oxlade is knocking on are those of baby-boomers and homeowners — the economic winners. Oxlade asks them charmingly if they have any problems.

“No, none.”

He knocks on another targeted door.

“No we’re all happy here.”

Again. Do you have any problems?

“Nothing springs to mind. No.”

These people are only a small percentage of Crawley.

The biggest cohort is the 45 percent of Crawley who never vote. Britain is unsure why: are they apathetic or angry?

We stroll on. Oxlade is no “parachute”: he’s Crawley born and bred, the kinds of local boy “Made Good” that parties long for, especially in a marginal.

“We’re doing really well,” says one councilor Oxlade bumps into campaigning for Labour. The team thinks the widespread concern about public services means they are going to win the seat, currently held by the Tories’ Henry Smith.

I watch Oxlade carefully. Everyone he speaks to reacts extremely positively to him: from the supermarket cashiers, to the Asian housewives and the pensioners. His manner is highly effective and he approaches voters asking not if they would vote Labour but what their concerns are.

I sit Oxlade down in an ASDA McDonalds to quiz him a bit.

“I’m ‘Crawley first’,” he said, “I’m a local boy.”

And a fiercely proud one.

“All these people come here to our 18-screen cinema and then they slag us off.”

Oxlade says he got into local politics because of the budget cuts: Local issues are why he wants to be an MP.

“People feel let down, there is no two ways about.”

Oxlade is unwilling to tell POLITICO whether he subscribes to Tony Blair’s free-market friendly “New Labour” or not, repeatedly saying “I’m just Labour.” He does not answer, when asked twice, to rate his left-wing-ness on a scale of one to 10.

Like the national party, he is evasive on immigration. I tried to put it as bluntly as I could: Does the country have too many immigrants?

“No.”

Can we have some more then?

“No.”

He laughs nervously. “Crawley was built on immigration. But it is a real concern on the doorstep.” When I suggest that Crawley would get nothing unless the Labour Party went into coalition with the SNP, he stonewalls — “that choice won’t happen.”

Conservatives are warning that this will happen if Labour were to win Crawley. Current polls are oscillating wildly in “motorway towns”, but hint Miliband is not on course to win enough “marginals” not to rely on the SNP.

***

I feel bad for Oxlade even as I quiz him: Candidates have very strict orders from Central Office on what they can and can’t say — a frustrating reality for men like Oxlade. They are forced to give disingenuous answers to legitimate questions, thereby adding to public distrust.

“I’m just trying to do the best for Crawley. I’ll fight tooth and nail for Crawley.”

A smiling woman in a headscarf who works in McDonalds comes up to us with a pot of lollipops, raising money for charity. She soon warms to Oxlade.

“I’m going to vote for you now because you gave money for the charity. I want you to know, I love this country, I came to this country, and I love it so much, this country did so much for my kids, they have jobs.”

Oxlade makes his pitch.

“Look, people, working people, are gonna vote Labour because they know they are gonna get much more support. Like most of the new townspeople are gonna vote for who they think will work best for them.”

I read on my phone that one Labour official had told the press it’s all about “the margins of the marginals’ now.”

I was not so sure about this.

The polling data is only of those who are going to vote: and the figure voting for Labour gives no indication how aware those voting for Labour are of who they are electing as an MP. I decide to find out.

***

For two hours I approach people on Crawley High Street, a picture of Oxlade in my hand. “Do you know this man? His name is Chris Oxlade.” I ask 100 people this question; as many as 69 of them have no clue.

“He’s a PM,” says a doe-eyed woman in a hijab, waiting in line in a chicken shop. “He’s one of them PMs.”

This is the real picture even in a marginal: Only a fraction of the population is engaged in politics and most are alienated from the election entirely. Polls suggest only 7% of Britain’s population is politically active.

I head straight for young people, most of whom are priced out of the property market. On Crawley’s “historic” high street, I find Dez. He has an ear piercing, wears a suit and tie, and is smoking a cigarette outside a pub.

“I don’t vote. I’m not voting out of pure laziness. I do give a shit about the state of the country but I’m too lazy to do anything about it. I’m worried about white people becoming a minority all over England. The political elite are like they live in a different world, like a different boat from the rest of us. I’d probably vote UKIP if I voted but I don’t think it matters.”

I next find Sarah, who works at Timpson’s Key Cutters — which employees 10% of its staff on a scheme for ex-offenders. She’s smoking in her uniform, looking tired. What does she think of political life in the marginal seat?

“Most people don’t even know this vote’s happening. Most working people I mean. They don’t care. They don’t think it relates to them. Rightly or wrongly they don’t think it will affect how they’re gonna put food on the table.”

She looks at the floor.

“People are just fed up of being lied to. The guy before was, like, ‘make me your MP and I’ll get you a hospital’ and people were like yeah. And now the other guy is, like, ‘make me your MP and I’ll get a better hospital than him.’ But that’s fucking ridiculous as they don’t vote on that in parliament and an MP doesn’t decide that.”

***

I come to Crawley Business Park on the edge of town to find the Conservatives.

Their campaign HQ sits in a squat office block, in front of the pagoda-like pylons of an electrical substation, surrounded by storage hangers. The office has cheap felt flooring. Henry Smith, the incumbent, wears a sensible blue V-neck.

Outside, we hear a lorry reverse, bleeping outside Crawley Business Park. But Henry Smith seems not to hear it, as he sits in this lonely room, and talks, rapt, about the fate of the nation.

“We’re seeing the dark side of nationalism here in Britain,” says Smith. “I think what we are seeing with the SNP and UKIP is a fortress, draw-up-the-draw-bridge attitude. This goes fundamentally against what it means to be British. They’re insular. We’re a small island, which only became wealthy because we broadened our horizons. The last thing we should be doing is narrowing them!”

Smith’s dreary walls are covered in war-maps of marginal streets — covered in curling highlighter pen. He sits back in front of a wall-sized Tory campaign calendar.

Smith is not fighting an old-fashioned Tory fight. UKIP won the 2014 elections for the European Parliament here. A big vote for Nigel Farage again will cost Smith his seat. UKIP means the old marginal politics is breaking down. Smith now needs to attack on his right to keep Crawley, and not just fight for center.

“The UKIP candidate is somewhat delusional,” says Smith. “He thinks he is going to win.” But pollsters increasingly believe UKIP voters will decide the election in the “marginals”: if they turn to Cameron, he wins. If they stay with Farage, Miliband enters Downing Street.

This is why Tory rhetoric is increasingly dark.

“I’m patriotic,” says Smith, “and I think UKIP threatens what they claim to stand for, which is the United Kingdom. But this will let in a leftwing government backed by the SNP. And what that means is Ed Miliband who will be bossed around and literally held to ransom by the SNP.”

He places both hands flat on the table.

“So by voting for a right-wing party,” he continues, “what they’ll actually achieve is a leftwing government — which wants to see the end of the UK ironically. This message is beginning to get through.”

Smith sounds more confident he is going to win than Labour’s candidate. But he sounds much more frightened, even apocalyptic, about Great Britain.

“You will always get belligerents who will vote UKIP come hell or high water. And we would have hell.”

Smith continues. His voice is grave as a headmaster. “I think, in Washington they should be deeply worried about a Labour-SNP government. The UK will take itself out of the international game, in terms of defense, and abandon the nuclear deterrent. We’ll be so wrapped in domestic chaos and crisis, both constitutionally and economically, I simply don’t think we’ll be a strong voice on the international stage.”

Smith flicks away a mosquito that has been buzzing him for a while. “I’m patriotic about my country,” he says, in language that is bidding for UKIP’s nationalist vote.

I note his choice of words: one, “patriotic,” keeps on coming up. He uses it six times in half an hour.

Smith’s leaflets look more UKIP than UKIP.

LET CRAWLEY DECIDE is written in bold over a picture of Smith smiling in front of a billowing Union Jack. Below, it says SIGN-UP TO SUPPORT HENRY SMITH’S CAMPAIGN FOR AN IN-OUT REFERENDUM ON BRITAIN’S MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. The conservative party logo is nearly invisible, tucked in size eight font at the very bottom.

“I would vote to leave the EU,” says Smith.

But since Smith agrees with UKIP’s single biggest issue, why does he think they are unpatriotic?

“I think there is an element of UKIP that are almost more the English Nationalist Party,” says Smith. “I heard many of them around Crawley saying they didn’t care during the Scottish independence referendum if the country broke up because then England could do its own thing.”

He has been unnerved by several of their comments.

“Many tend towards conspiracy theories as well.”

***

As the light fades, I stand in front of Three Bridges train station on the edge of Crawley, badgering commuters. “Do you recognize this man,” I ask, holding up a picture. “His name is Henry Smith.”

Out of 100 people, 70 have no idea who he is. Of those that know, I ask about Scotland. Are they worried Miliband and the SNP could break up Britain?

I meet one furrow-faced IT manager who says he is so concerned about Britain losing its international influence he was going to vote Conservative. From the rest it’s “Don’t care,” or, more often, “Don’t give a shit.”

On the wheelchair access ramp at Three Bridges station, I begin to feel the impending collapse of the country that Henry Smith so fears. Not because of Miliband’s weakness, but because of England’s sheer indifference.

This article is the second of a multipart series on the UK election. The first instalment ran Monday.

Illustration by Al Jabbaro.