The grassroots movement held its inaugural ‘unseat day’ in the east Midlands town, with the aim of ousting its first Tory MP

It’s early on a Saturday morning, but people can barely squeeze through the door of Mansfield Gas Sports & Social Club. Older Labour activists sit in groups and call out to each other. One, wearing his miner’s hat, makes small talk with a smattering of student first-timers.



It’s the first of Momentum’s “unseat days”, where the Labour grassroots movement trains local activists to campaign against high-profile Conservative MPs. The day’s target is Ben Bradley, Mansfield’s first Tory MP since the seat’s creation in 1885.

Since 2015, more than 350 new members have joined Labour in Mansfield, more than doubling its numbers. But Mansfield’s election result tells a different story to many other parts of the country.

In the EU referendum more than 70% of voters in the east Midlands town voted to leave and it was heavily targeted by the Conservatives in 2017.

Labour MPs in nearby seats saw similar problems, no matter what wing of the party they came from. Both Gloria De Piero and Dennis Skinner saw their majorities slashed. For Alan Meale, who had been Mansfield’s MP for 30 years, the swing was enough to oust him, even though Labour increased its share of the vote.

The new chair of the constituency Labour party (CLP), Martin Lee, has been a party member for 30 years. He is one of a raft of new officers elected in November after the election defeat. “I just thought Momentum was talking the way I was feeling. People thought they only saw us around election time. It was a fair criticism.”

The training for the 150 activists is being led by Momentum’s Ben Timberley. He is keen to use his skills from his day job in marketing to build a new approach to campaigning in towns where the traditional Labour vote is in decline. “It’s out with the old, in with the new,” he says.

The audience erupts into applause when their newly selected candidate, Sonya Ward, arrives. She secured the nomination in a landslide victory at the hustings just a week before.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sonya Ward, Labour’s newly selected candidate in Mansfield. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

On the stage, Timberley begins his training, and throws out some criticisms activists may have heard on the doorstep, “Labour isn’t for working-class people any more”, which gets murmurs of agreement, or “the Labour MP has done nothing here”, which gets another round of nods, and even “Jeremy Corbyn”, he adds.

The answer is not to get angry, he says. “We have to move the argument into places we can win.”

Labour knew Mansfield would be a challenge when the snap general election was called.

One volunteer said they had initially predicted a Conservative majority of up to 5,000, having seen early postal vote returns which looked dire for Labour. However, almost all the activists said the race tightened in later weeks, a trend shown around the country.

Nonetheless, Lee says the result shocked him. “I was confident we’d hang on.”

Profile Mansfield Show Hide Potted history This Nottinghamshire constituency was held by Labour for 82 years before Ben Bradley won it for the Conservatives. Relative to others it has been a marginal seat since 2005, but Labour’s Sir Alan Meale, who held the seat for 30 years, managed to hold on until Bradley’s win in 2017. Population: 107,435 MP: Ben Bradley, Conservative Majority: 1,057 Brexit referendum result: 29.1% voted to remain, 70.9% voted to leave

Those who say they saw the result coming were convinced one of the key problems was the Labour leader. “The main theme we were hearing was a reluctance to vote for Labour while Jeremy Corbyn was leader,” one local source said. “Jeremy clearly had a good campaign in many parts of the country, but not in areas like this.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Momentum activists out campaigning in the town after their training. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

Election night also threw up a surprising trend, Labour beat expectations in the more affluent and generally solid Tory wards. In more deprived wards, the Conservatives did better than expected.

In his cottage outside the former colliery village of Warsop, John Allin, a Labour member for 40 years, says he had never seen a result like it. “It is the first time ever, I mean ever, that votes in Warsop stacked up for the Conservatives. It is a very traditional Labour place.”

Allin, a former chair of Nottinghamshire county council who still chairs the local parish council, said he too had been sceptical at first when Corbyn was elected, hinting he had not been a positive factor on the doorstep for voters early in the campaign. “People are warming to him now, he was practically unknown when he got elected,” he says.

Allin says he thought the problem was Meale. “I was hearing it from a lot of people, I’m not voting Labour this time. I think in a lot of people’s eyes he was getting stale,” he says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ben Timberley, who led the unseat day for activists in Mansfield. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

In his Warsop butcher’s shop, Labour councillor Andy Wetton says there was a massive swing from Ukip to the Conservatives which he feels accounted for much of the blow. “Here people feel very strongly about Brexit. I don’t think people were very clear on Labour’s position, but that could go for the Conservatives as well, particularly since the election,” he said.

One of the area’s biggest employers is the Sports Direct warehouse in Shirebrook and the number of eastern European workers fuelled the vote to leave, Wetton says.

John Mann, Labour MP for the neighbouring constituency of Bassetlaw, says the party’s tactics had showed a “wilful neglect of the reality … in this part of the country”, particularly on Brexit, immigration and defence.

“This area is the biggest per capita contributor to Help for Heroes, significantly so,” he said. “The big test for them is – is this Labour leader a person who would shake a bucket for Help for Heroes?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martin Lee, chair of the local Labour party in Mansfield. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

Steve Yemm, the former chair of the local party and a mayoral candidate, also says the party needs a rethink to win back seats like Mansfield. “A campaign that promises an end to capitalism and a big splurge of identity politics is not going to win around here.”

Ward, whose job it will be to win the seat back, says the party should now focus on living standards. “A lot of the old coalfields, areas that desperately need regeneration, had a similar result. This area has been overlooked by all political parties,” she says.

After the devastating result, many long-serving local officers decided to step down and new ones were elected at the party’s AGM in November, including Lee. “You could characterise it as a Momentum-run CLP,” one local activist says.

Lee says it was not a takeover. “Some of us are members of Momentum, but there’s a lot of people in the CLP who just want to see a Labour victory.”

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Mansfield’s selection battle would set another unusual precedent. Momentum threw its weight behind Ward rather than David Prescott, a key aide to Corbyn who was widely viewed as the frontrunner.

Prescott did not even get shortlisted, though his campaign had suffered a setback when the GMB union decided not to proceed with an endorsement after allegations of inappropriate behaviour emerged during the Westminster harassment scandal. No formal complaint was made.



After the final vote from party members, Ward’s victory was overwhelming, with more than 50% of the 286 votes cast at the meeting.

Ward, a former youth worker, was in a good position to win Momentum’s backing. She supported Corbyn’s bid to be leader from the beginning, spoke at his rallies and had deep roots in the community.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Campaign leaflets given to Momentum activists at the unseat day. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

Ward is “certainly not a far-left Trotskyist” one local activist says. “She is leftwing but I think she saw the support around Jeremy rising and decided to take the risk.” Another critic was blunter. “If she’d have wanted to be selected 20 years ago, she probably would have been a Blairite.”



Lee says it was not the case that Momentum imposed a candidate. “Sonya got the support of Momentum, and the unions, because of her record.”

Timberley says it was crucial for Momentum’s campaigning strategy that the candidate was a well-known local voice. “Having a local candidate, not parachuting somebody in, every constituency needs that if they are going to win.”

As he handed out leaflets to newly trained volunteers, Timberley said he did not want activists to fall into the trap of blaming voters for the last election result.

“The left, unfortunately, has a long history of berating people if they don’t believe in things in the right way. I know there will be people here still stuck in that mindset. I hope we’re going to see a paradigm shift here.”