Is Burnham too Northern? (opens in new tab)

Like many post-industrial constituencies in Northern England — areas with predominantly white, working-class, Brexit-voting populations — received wisdom had Makerfield hurtling towards the Right. Britain, it has been repeated by any number of well-paid and well-placed commentators, is a nation increasingly divided into progressive urban enclaves, supported by the bloc votes of ethnic minorities, pitted against more conservative and mainly white ex-industrial “heartlands”. On this reading, Ma...