The Labour party wasn’t born in Doncaster, but it was conceived here. Every day, thousands of commuters in the town’s red-brick train station walk past a shiny gold plaque commemorating two local trade unionists, Thomas R Steels and Jimmy Holmes, “founding fathers of the Labour party”. It was Steels who, on the eve of the 20th century, penned a motion calling for an alliance of unions, socialist and working-class organisations to secure “a better representation of the interests of Labour in the House of Commons”. It was a proposal that the Trade Union Congress narrowly accepted and, in 1906, the Labour party was born.

Towns like Doncaster are divided along lines of class, education, race and, perhaps most strikingly, age

It would satisfy Steels and Holmes to know that all three of Doncaster’s MPs are Labour. But the party’s electoral coalition is radically different from those days. There are the working-class towns of the north and the Midlands, their traditional industries battered and replaced by call centres and supermarkets; and the big cities, where diverse working-class communities live alongside cosmopolitan university graduates. The outlooks, values and priorities of the people who live in these places not only differ, they’re on a collision course. It is a faultline that the EU referendum exposed and widened. Both Hackney in inner London and Doncaster are Labour heartlands. While nearly eight out of 10 Hackney residents voted to remain, nearly seven out of 10 Doncaster voters opted for leave.

But towns like Doncaster are far from homogenous: they too are divided along lines of class, education, race and, perhaps most strikingly, age. When I point at the plaque, 26-year-old Kez, a railway worker in a yellow hi-vis vest, shrugs: “I’m personally not really into politics.” Like an overwhelming majority of black Britons, he voted Labour in 2015. “When they were in power they did a lot of all right for people, that’s what I think.” In a classic show of Yorkshire understatement, he tells me: “Jeremy Corbyn’s all right.” And although he didn’t vote in the EU referendum – the turnout here was slightly below the national average – he would have gone for remain.

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Jane, a cleaner in her 50s wheeling a trolley through the station, votes Labour too – “I always have done” – but her take on the Labour leader is less charitable. “I just don’t like him at all, just some of his values. I think they need to concentrate more on old people, the health service, cut the majority of benefits for all these young’uns having all these children, getting benefits thrown at them.” Like so many voters, her views straddle traditionally left- and rightwing values; the granddaughter of a miner, she says: “Labour’s more for the working people, and the working people mean more to this country than these millionaires and these rich pensioners.”

Like Kez, Jane didn’t vote in the referendum – “didn’t have time” – but she would have plumped for leave. “We’ve got all these foreigners in our country,” she says, lowering her voice. “Those who’ve come in the last couple of years, just to come live here, to get the majority of our jobs and our benefits, they need to go back.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Corbyn during an EU referendum campaign rally in Doncaster on 27 May 2016. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

A recent poll found that, while Labour had a lead among voters under 50, the Tory lead among Britons aged 50 to 64 was 21 points, soaring to an astonishing 50 points among the over-65s.

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In Doncaster, that generational contrast is stark indeed. Emily and Shehnai are both 18 and chat outside the station. Although they were too young to vote last June, they would have gone for remain. “It was all, ‘ooh foreigners’, but a foreigner is just someone who used to live somewhere else, they’re allowed to move. We go to other countries and people don’t complain,” says Emily, an apprentice at a solicitor’s office. Both of them like Corbyn, with reservations: Emily worries he’s seen as “a bit flimsy”. “It’s just a shambles,” says Shehnai, who is looking for work after completing her A-levels. “They’re turning against Jeremy. If you don’t like what he stands for, leave the party. You’re in Labour for a reason, for working people.”

Their views could hardly be more diametrically opposed to those of Keith, a 54-year-old postman sorting mail in the reception of a local charity. He passionately backs leave: “Too many foreigners in the country, way too many, way way way too many.” The NHS will soon cease to exist because of immigrants, he claims, even though he grudgingly accepts the service would collapse without foreign-born nurses and doctors.

I meet Labour councillors Charlie Hogarth and Jane Nightingale at the town’s recently built civic office. Charlie, who’s 60, once worked as an electrician down one of the local pits. He protests that few mention Corbyn on Doncaster’s doorsteps. But there’s no doubt about a generational divide. “We’ve got more concerns with the elderly over the leadership,” says Jane. Why? Charlie blames the press – “they’re so demonising, portraying a split party”. Why did towns like Doncaster vote to leave? “It’s people’s perception,” says Charlie. “If you’ve got a street that’s never had any foreigners on it then suddenly there’s a foreign family on it – suddenly you perceive it being overrun by foreigners.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘If you’ve got a street that’s never had any foreigners on it then there’s a foreign family – suddenly you perceive it being overrun by foreigners.’’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Jenny, a 41-year-old council worker who voted remain, tells me about a young man who moved with his family to a row of terraced houses and then felt isolated. “An essentially transient, largely male workforce from some of the factories round here decided to move to that street,” she said. “That wasn’t his desire: I don’t think he was expecting his family to be surrounded by these young guys from eastern Europe.”

Doncaster and Hackney might both vote Labour, but they inhabit different worlds. In the Leopard pub by Doncaster station, I sit with John, a Unite union organiser. “My perception of Hackney would be it’d be a nice commuter belt, people go to the City, decent banking jobs, insurance and all that.” I tell him it has one of the highest rates of child poverty in Britain. “I shouldn’t have these misconceptions, I’m a union activist!” he says. “I bet in Hackney they think Doncaster people walk around with flat caps and whippets, all scruffy.” Thatcherism and New Labour have both left a legacy of disillusionment, he believes.



“Jeremy Corbyn has a massive job on his hands,” he tells me. “There’s the splits not just in the party but among voters too. They’ve got to give people hope in Doncaster – that’s what will defeat fear, it’s hope.”

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If anyone needs hope, it’s those who depend on the local foodbank. Mark, a retired teacher, is the enthusiastic manager. The foodbank opened in 2013; two satellite centres have opened in the ex-pit villages of Bentley and Rossington. Last year more than 4,000 locals were fed, the majority because of benefit sanctions and delays. One is Paul, a 49-year-old from Bentley, who has been found fit for work and moved from employment support allowance to jobseeker’s allowance, and found himself hungry while this was processed. One of the hopes of the Corbyn project was to mobilise non-voters, but Paul underlines that those who need politics the most continue to be the most disengaged. “I’m not really bothered, I can’t remember the last time I voted.” Kai, who is 20, whose benefits were sanctioned when he was made homeless, goes blank at the very mention of politics. “Don’t even get half of it. You don’t normally till you’re older do you?”

Here is a town that played a critical role in forging the Labour party. Its older, working-class residents have a view of the world that is utterly different and in conflict with much of the next generation, particularly in big cities. How Labour overcomes such divisions and rebuilds a broader electoral coalition will determine the future of the party – and the country, too.