‘Nigel Farage and Brexit!’ Inside the rise and fall of patriotic pride in England’s most English town as locals pin hopes on Reform’s fight back

And given Canvey has already elected one Labour MP during the constituency’s Tory-dominated inception, Reform UK’s crusaders now look poised to lead the patriotic fight back on the Essex coast.

“I just feel so let down,” one local resident told GB News. “I voted for Brexit to take back control of our borders but it’s just gotten out of control. I really believe, if anyone can change that, Nigel can.”

It soon became clear that more and more locals had pinned Canvey’s drop in Englishness on the legacy of both the Tories and Labour.

Steve Love, 69, who relocated to Canvey Island from Dagenham around 20 years ago, admitted: “I’m not as proud of being English as I used to be. We’ve been let down by successive Governments for the past 20 years.”

Love, who had a St George’s tattoo injected onto his forearm, also expressed his hopes of Farage turning the ship around.

Basking in the spring sun outside Sak’s Bar, Love added: “The only way we can change it now is get Reform in and that’s only if they do what they’re promising. If that happens, then we have half a chance.”

The pensioner, like so many people in Canvey, went on to describe the Channel crossing crisis as the single biggest issue facing the country.

“People are sick of it,” he said. “It’s not about genuine asylum seekers, fleeing wars and stuff. These people are economic migrants.”

And even those who supported Remain could not disassociate Englishness from Farage’s biggest political moment: the Brexit referendum.

John Simmonds, 76, who was among just 27.3 per cent of Castle Point residents to support staying in the EU in 2016, said: “A lot of the change comes from people regretting their decision. My friends certainly do, although they won’t admit it.”

There are also growing concerns about England’s history and traditions being rubbished in recent years.

Back at the seafront, White claimed: “I saw it the other day, a woman was on TV calling for us to tear down Nelson’s Column. It’s like every part of our history is getting erased.”

A tweed-clad John Sutton added: “I’m in the RAF Association and compared to the Americans we don’t show any support for our Armed Forces … It’s such a shame and it’s only getting worse.”

The latest Census highlights the stark drop in Englishness both in Canvey and England at large.

The 2011 Census had put Canvey Island’s English-only population at 77.5 per cent but the latest survey showed the figure had fallen to just 27.3 per cent four years ago.

Meanwhile, the 8.6 per cent of residents who identified as both English and British jumped to 16.9 per cent, with the proportion identifying as British soaring from just 11 per cent to 52.5 per cent.

Canvey, which is covered by Castle Point in Westminster, delivered a knife-edge Tory victory in the 2024 General Election.

Reform UK’s Keiron McGill secured 12,234 votes, just 3,251 ballots behind sitting Conservative MP Rebecca Harris.

Recent opinion polls suggest Reform UK would now snatch the Essex seaside town, along with swathes of others across parts of England with high levels of patriotic fervour.

And Canvey has been in Farage’s sights for the best part of two decades, with the Clacton MP visiting the seaside town during his victorious 2014 and 2019 EU Parliament Election campaigns.

Ukip even managed to represent the coastal constituency in the House of Commons, albeit only briefly following Bob Spink’s 2008 defection.

However, there remains clear evidence that Reform UK can count on higher levels of support among proudly English voters.

And Reform UK knows there is an opportunity to monopolise and even cannibalise the issue.

“Both the Conservatives and Labour have built an education system rooted in British guilt, driven by divisive woke ideology, and designed to undermine traditional masculinity,” Ashfield MP Lee Anderson told the People’s Channel.

“They have ruined patriotism through their failure to make people proud. Reform UK will remind the public that Britain is one of the most generous, resilient, and accomplished nations on earth. We are hard-working people with every reason to be proud.”

He added: “Patriotism demands leadership that believes in its own citizens. Reform will always put the British people first – so they choose to stay, invest in their future, and rebuild this nation, rather than flee it, as they do under the Tories and Labour.”

However, overlooking the clear local association between patriotism and Reform, Harris instead swiped at Labour on the question of Englishness.

Harris, who serves as Kemi Badenoch’s Opposition Chief Whip, said: “There is a unique sense of community in Canvey. It would be Emily Thornberry’s worst nightmare – lots of vans and St George’s flags.”

She added: “It’s very sad that the feeling of national pride is on the decline. I don’t think people feel like this Government reflects or even understands their sense of national pride or Englishness.”

Labour’s English problem does not just date back to Thornberry’s visit to Rochester & Strood in 2014 or Starmer’s apparent inability to display a St George’s flag following his landslide victory.

“In left-wing circles,” George Orwell wrote in his 1941 essay The Lion and the Unicorn, “it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution.”

Speaking to GB News on St George’s Day, Farage inadvertently echoed Orwell’s damning wartime assessment.

“It’s as if, to the North London intellectuals, the very thought of Englishness is almost abhorrent,” the Reform UK leader said.

Despite Labour’s long-standing patriotism problem, trade unionist Paul Embery, ex-MP Tristam Hunt and activist musician Billy Bragg have all proved that left-leaning thinkers believe there is room for Englishness in the Labour Party.

Dover & Deal MP Mike Tapp believes Labour’s commitment to delivery proves it is already the true party of patriotism.

The ex-army intelligence officer told the People’s Channel: “When we talk about patriotism, be it British or English, that means standing up for the country and what we’ve already seen from Labour is fixing the NHS and reducing waiting times, which impacts everybody.

“We’ve put £1,400 extra in millions of workers’ pockets through raising the minimum wage, we’ve been trying to stabilise the economy after inheriting an absolute mess and putting more police on the streets to combat anti-social behaviour.”

Taking a direct swipe at both the Tories and Reform, Tapp added: “Patriotism is about service. The Tories failed to serve, given they cut the military to its smallest size since the Napoleonic times. Cut the police by significant numbers. The NHS was left completely on its knees and tanked the economy.

“When it comes to Reform, if you’re fawning over Putin, then you don’t want what’s best for this country and they’ve voted against all of the measures that will help working people across the country.”

And Starmer himself could not help but take a veiled swipe at Farage during his St George’s Day tribute.

“That flag doesn’t belong to me as Prime Minister,” Starmer said. “It doesn’t belong to my party, the Labour Party, or to any group or political party.

“It belongs to all of us, to England in all of its wonderful diversity. And we should be proud of that flag and we must never concede it because it’s an expression of our values and our patriotism.”

The Prime Minister also vowed to “wrench the flag out of the hands of those who want to divide this nation and reclaim it for good”, adding: “That’s what we must do for our country, for English decency, honour and fairness.”

Following Starmer’s St George’s Day comments, Farage told the People’s Channel: “You get the feeling that what’s happening today (April 23) in Downing Street – with the flag of St George and Starmer saying he wants to reclaim the flag – basically the Labour Party and the Prime Minister is dancing to Reform’s tune.”

However, research conducted shortly before the 2024 General Election by More in Common found around 23 per cent of “English only” voters backed Reform UK, well-above the populist party’s 14.4 per cent UK-wide haul.

Reform’s support slowly drops when voters feel less English, dipping down to just nine per cent among “British only” respondents.

It is a similar story for the Tories, with 28 per cent of “English only” voters backing the Conservatives in 2024 but just 19 per cent of “British only” voters doing the same.

However, the problem for the Tories in 2024 was that the drop in support it witnessed last July was exacerbated by the support it lost from English-identifying voters.

The Tories suffered a 26 per cent drop among “English only” voters and a 28 per cent slump among “more English than British” voters.

Meanwhile, Labour made the most gains amongst “English only” voters, with the once-steadfast Tories handing Starmer an eight-point boost.

And, perhaps strikingly, Reform’s subsequent surge in support has likely been propelled by voters who describe themselves as English rather than British.

More in Common found Backbone Conservatives, Loyal Nationals and Disengaged Traditionalists identify more as English than British – with Reform’s support among those groups soaring by four, six and nine per cent respectively.

The only exception among groups who were more likely to identify as British came among Disengaged Battlers, with a seven-point Reform boost.

Despite many in Canvey wanting to deliver a damning verdict on the first 10 months of Starmer’s Government, Essex was among the councils to axe its otherwise imminent local election contests this May.

The county was arguably seen as Reform’s number one target, with the populist party already returning two MPs and emerging as a clear challenger in an additional eight out of 18 seats.

However, GB News’s number-crunchers have revealed some of the other patches of predominantly Brexit-backing England where Farage can set his sights.

More than 20 areas where more than one-in-five locals identified as “English only” will return councillors to their respective county halls on May 1.

And many overlap with Electoral Calculus’s recent research pinpointing where Reform UK can expect to make the most significant inroads.

Derbyshire, which could see Reform emerge as its largest party, includes Amber Valley and North East Derbyshire.

Meanwhile, Swale, which has already delivered a number of by-election successes for Reform, could propel the populist party to a similar position in Kent.

Devon, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire could also prove fruitful for Farage.

Despite making serious inroads in England, Nowcast also shows Reform UK leaving its mark on Welsh politics.

Reform, which is expanding its support far beyond England, could now snatch Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr, Llanelli, Neath & Swansea East and Rhondda & Ogmore.

Farage is expected to perform well in Wales next year, potentially even supplanting Labour as the largest party in Cardiff Bay.

However, Reform could also surpass Ukip’s high point by not only returning MSPs to Holyrood but becoming the third largest party by vote share north of the border.

Despite much being made of England’s drop in Englishness, experts have warned against putting too much faith in the Office for National Statistics’ nationality data.

Professor John Denham, a former Labour MP who now heads up the University of Southampton’s Centre for English Identity and Politics, told GB News: “You can’t compare the most recent ONS with the previous one because they changed the ordering of the questions.

“Most reliable polls show a gradual drift from people saying they are more English than British to equally English and British. There’s no sign of people stopping being English entirely.”

On the overall shift in English identity since 2011, Professor Denham added: “Pride has fallen for Englishness and Britishness alike – no doubt the reasons you heard are part of this.”