There are many in Sedgefield who did much for Tony Blair during his 24 years as MP for the County Durham constituency. But it was only Stephen Elliott who agreed to sacrifice his spare bedroom window for the then prime minister, his neighbour in the former mining village of Trimdon Colliery.

“When George Bush landed his helicopter here in 2003, I let the American secret service take over the back bedroom. They took the glass out and had snipers up there when the president and his wife went in to see Tony and Cherie,” said the 60-year-old builder as he ate sausage and mash in his garden on Thursday.

Elliott, whose late father was on the local Labour party executive during the Blair era, saw Nigel Farage on Wednesday’s news telling a marquee full of Brexiters at Sedgefield racecourse that he was declaring an “all-out political war” on the Labour party. It was a threat greeted with cheers by several hundred local Brexiters, many former Labour voters, who had all paid £5 for this audience with the Brexit party leader.

The Labour party cannot rely on the north-east any more, conceded Elliott. Even he did not think he could bring himself to vote Labour when the general election rolls around, and will probably abstain. “To be honest, it’s Jeremy Corbyn,” he said. “He’s not the right leader … There are lots of Labour supporters I know who won’t vote Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn.”

Farage was rebuffed by the Conservatives this week when he suggested an electoral pact to beat Labour which would see the Tories stand down in seats where – to quote Farage’s press officer, Gawain Towler – “no one has ever kissed a Tory but they kissed us in the Euro elections and voted heavily leave”.

Labour ought to have breathed a sigh of relief when a senior Tory said Farage would not be allowed “anywhere near government” because he was not a “fit and proper person”.

They know their once rock-solid vote in many leave areas, particularly in the former coalfields, is looking shaky: in May’s European elections, the Brexit party was easily the largest party in County Durham, winning 39.5% of the vote, with Labour second on 19.3%. And in the last Durham county council elections, in 2017, Labour lost 20 seats (nine to independents, six to the Tories and five to the Lib Dems).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paula Brown in the carpet shop that used to be Trimdon’s Labour club. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

In Sedgefield, where an estimated 60% of the electorate voted leave, Labour’s majority is down to 6,059, 12,000 fewer than Blair managed in his final election in 2005, when he was challenged by Reg Keys, whose son had died in Iraq.

Next door in Bishop Auckland, the Tories have cut Labour’s majority to 502. At the Woodhouse Close church community centre, where deprivation levels are among the worst 1% in England, few people seemed surprised at Labour’s local demise. The centre, which operates a food bank and crisis service, has seen demand double year on year, with 1,595 people needing help in 2018-19, compared with 795 the previous year. Bishop Auckland has been Labour since 1935 “and yet people haven’t seen their lives here improve”, said one volunteer.

More than a quarter of the centre’s clients need help because of benefit delays, particularly universal credit – a Tory invention which has resulted in new claimants waiting up to six weeks for payments. And yet it is Labour many seem to blame. “I don’t think Labour is as strong as it used to be,” said 81-year-old Joyce Raine. So much of the industry has gone, she said, conceding that “Thatcher started it but Labour doesn’t seem to have done much to stop it”.

I would definitely not vote for them now, not since Jeremy Corbyn. I just don’t trust him Kieron Naylor

Back on Front Street in Trimdon Colliery, 21-year-old Kieron Naylor was getting ready for his shift at Hitachi Rail Europe, a Japanese-owned firm that builds 35 trains a month for the EU market from the north-east’s biggest manufacturing park in Newton Aycliffe.

Naylor voted leave, ignoring warnings that exiting the EU could cause problems for Hitachi’s European exports. “I would just rather we were back on our own,” he said. “It’s a risk … but it should make it easier to have closer relations with Japan.” In a general election he would vote Conservative, he said. “People have lost their faith in Labour. I would definitely not vote for them now, not since Jeremy Corbyn. I just don’t trust him. I would probably vote for the Tories. I think the only people around here now who are against them are the miners, the die-hard Labour people.”

His view contrasts with research from the University of Bristol this week, which concluded there are “very high levels of antipathy” towards the Conservatives among voters who backed Labour in 2017, no matter how they feel about Brexit.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Scully and Denise Hutchinson inside the Trimdon Colliery and Deaf Hill working men’s club and institute. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The tribal Labour vote has not totally died out in Sedgefield. In the Trimdon Colliery and Deaf Hill workmen’s club, Denise Hutchinson, 47, whose claim to fame is that she once beat Tony Blair at darts, said she would be sticking with Labour: “I’ve always voted Labour. My grandad worked down the pit. I’m not really into politics but I will carry on with Labour.”

In his driveway just around the corner, a former miner, James Skelton, 88, and his wife, Anne, 82, said they would opt for the Brexit party this time. “I don’t class myself as English any more. I’m being made into a European. I have always voted but we are losing our identity,” he said. “I believe Europe is destroying us. I would prefer to be a satellite of America than Europe.”

When Blair stood down in 2007, he gathered the world’s media to Trimdon’s Labour club for his resignation speech. The club closed in 2010 and is now a carpet shop.

Inside, Paula Brown said she may vote for the Brexit party, despite voting remain in 2016. “I’ve no faith in any of them. I would never in a million years vote for Jeremy Corbyn. I would rather vote Tory, even Lib Dem.” Corbyn, she said, was “IRA”, and frightened her: “I would rather have Piers Morgan as prime minister. I know it seems mad, but he’s consistent and isn’t afraid to say what he thinks. Nigel Farage cuts through in the same way.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest James Skelton: ‘I believe Europe is destroying us. I would prefer to be a satellite of America than Europe.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

She sent a colleague down to the basement to find some of the Labour “bumpf” the party left behind: a biography of Blair’s local fixer, John Burton, and flyers put out in 2010 by Phil Wilson, Blair’s successor as Sedgefield’s MP.

Wilson knows he has not done himself any favours locally by being vocally in favour of remaining in the EU and having a second referendum. He finds himself caught in a perfect storm, faced with constituents who hate his party leader and/or want to leave the EU soonest, with or without a deal. One of those factors is problematic; two pose him an existential threat.

But he says he is not too worried about losing his seat. “I’m more worried that we have a no-deal Brexit or that we have a Brexit of some description without the people having a chance to confirm they want to go along with that deal,” he said.

“Otherwise in a few months or a year’s time, when the jobs are starting to go and there is problems at the border, they have an absolute right to turn around and say: ‘Hang on a minute, we didn’t vote for this.’”