In the port town of Grimsby on the east coast of northern England, an old political rivalry has to contend with a new threat in the UK’s general election. The fight to win a seat in Parliament isn't just between the ruling center right Conservative party and the center left Labour party. There’s also the shadow and the fallout of Britain’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union in 2016, as Iolo ap Dafydd reports. #ukelection
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00:00To buy cod and haddock here, you have to be quick.
00:05The selling is fast and the fish are carted out as soon as they're auctioned.
00:10Buyers come from across the UK.
00:12In the 1950s and early 60s, it was the world's largest fishing port, and it still claims
00:18to have the busiest fish market in England.
00:20These days, most of the fish are imported from Iceland.
00:24What matters is about the things around the business.
00:26More business is just the fish, but it's the rules and regulations around employment,
00:31about minimum wage, about pensions, about rights, and about access to getting to work.
00:36Things that are actually the nitty-gritty of the business.
00:39Grimsby's docks have seen better days.
00:42At one time, they'd be teeming with hundreds of trawlers.
00:45Fish processing is still big business.
00:48Some specialized companies are not only surviving, but thriving.
00:52We've been smoking here in this method for well over 100 years.
00:58Brexit was the right thing to do.
00:59I don't want Brussels running our country, but it's only right that we should trade with
01:04our neighbors.
01:05It's bonkers that we shouldn't trade with our neighbors, and the common market should
01:09exist.
01:10It should have been reformed.
01:11And if Brussels hadn't been so arrogant, what they would have done is made the UK situation
01:16work.
01:17A few years ago, this constituency voted 71% in favor of Brexit and breaking away from
01:23the European single market, despite possible adverse effect and other issues too.
01:28In 2019, it voted for the first time in 80 years for a right-wing politician to get Brexit
01:35done.
01:36Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Labour opponent Keir Starmer came to debate in Grimsby.
01:42Both they and their parties hardly mentioned the Brexit word, instead blaming the COVID
01:46pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine as the reasons why the British economy is in a perilous
01:52state.
01:53It's been really bad.
01:56Really has.
01:57Because a lot of them are on the dole now, and some of them are looking for jobs, but
02:03they're not getting them.
02:04I think everybody voted wrong, and nobody wants to admit that they voted wrong.
02:08It's actually probably cost us a lot of money.
02:10In my opinion, it was very, very bad because it stopped freedom.
02:15Oliver Freeston was one of the UK's youngest conservative politicians.
02:19Now he's joined a populist right-wing party and is keen to attract votes from the right
02:24and the left of British politics because, he says, they have failed the country.
02:29They failed to deliver on the benefits that Brexit could have brought, and that's why
02:32people in Grimsby and Cleethorpes particularly are so angry about it, because we voted 70%
02:37overwhelmingly to leave the European Union, and a lot of people did that based on taking
02:42control of our borders.
02:43He is confident, but the opposition Labour party is predicted to regain this seat.
02:48The paramount thoughts on people's minds is how much they have in their family budget,
02:54but they're also deeply concerned about the state of the NHS, and post-pandemic, how we
03:00can recover and get more people treated and off waiting lists.
03:05Just over half the population voted last time.
03:08There is frustration at the cost of living and the shadow of Brexit, despite some public
03:13investments, others argue the quality of life here is deteriorating.
03:17They blame mismanagement of the economy, migration and too many empty promises.
03:23Politicians in these coastal areas hope they can catch a ballot box full of votes.
03:28Yolanda Davids, CGTN, Grimsby, England.