Inside the forgotten ‘capital of Brexit’ – where Boris Johnson’s unkept promises have left voters feeling betrayed

I t’s a bleak, cold weekday afternoon in Hanley, one of the six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands.

On the high street, a serene, almost sleepy atmosphere is suddenly broken by two masked young men racing their electric motorbikes past empty shops and a boarded-up 18th-century church.

A few shoppers look up. Many trudge on, undisturbed.

This is the gateway to Hanley, the place billed as the centre for a resurgent Stoke-on-Trent, but now an area even city leaders admit hasn’t worked out so far.

Seven years ago, a report revealed more than a quarter of shops were empty. Today, the large Poundland, Greggs bakery, and numerous card and phone shops cannot disguise the many shuttered units across the town.

In the former Sports Direct, a closure sign dated August 2018 is on display.

“Why would anyone want to come to Hanley,” Matt Bradbury, manager at Armstrong Health and Herbal, says. Situated between a mini market and a nail salon, the family-run business was established in 1906 and is said to be the oldest in town.

Stood amongst shelves of herbal remedies and health supplements, Mr Bradbury says that just 10 years ago, the town drew shoppers from far and wide, attracted by the now-closed Debenhams and Marks & Spencer.

“Now you go down the high street and you can see the lack of support given for small businesses,” he says.

Flowers are sold underneath a Stanley Matthews statue in Hanley, the commercial hub of Stoke-on-Trent - although city leaders say more needs to be done to improve the area impacted by high shop vacancy rates (The Independent)

Hope for a revival in fortunes arrived in the form of an ambitious plan: Etruscan Square. The intention was to build a 2,600-capacity arena, along with homes and food outlets, at the boarded-up former bus station in Hanley town centre, backed by £20m in the government’s post- Brexit Levelling Up scheme.

It appeared a just reward for Stoke, a city that overwhelmingly voted for Brexit, and then kicked out Labour MPs from all three of its constituencies at the 2019 general election as the “red wall” came tumbling down in the face of Boris Johnson ’s pledge to “get Brexit done”.

But after Labour won back control of the council in 2023, the plan for an arena was dropped due to affordability. In May, the BBC reported that out of £56m Levelling Up money awarded to Stoke in 2021, more than £31m remained unspent.

The Etruscan Square scheme forms part of a wider masterplan unveiled this year , which also includes tackling empty shops, revitalising disused historic buildings and replacing a nearby leisure centre. The target date for the project to transform the city centre into a "more vibrant, connected and welcoming space” is 2050.

It’s no wonder people in the town feel so disillusioned, says Danny Flynn, former chief executive of the YMCA North Staffordshire, who retired in April after more than 40 years working in the voluntary sector in Stoke.

“People don’t believe it anymore – they go ‘yeh rubbish’,” he says. “There have so many times been promises made about regeneration in Stoke, and they haven’t happened.

“People feel left behind. Fifty years of decline is so bleeding obvious in Stoke – how else would you feel? If you’ve seen your city degrade so badly then you are going to be feeling pretty pissed off.”

The shop vacancy rate in Hanley was 29 per cent six years ago – today, it looks to be higher following the closures of Debenhams and Marks & Spencer (The Independent)

Once at the heart of the industrial revolution, Stoke has continued to suffer successive shocks: from the closure of its coal mines and steel works, to the decline in its potteries industry – although the city’s tourism website still promotes its status as “World Capital of Ceramics”.

Office for National Statistics data shows 21 per cent of working-age adults were neither employed nor seeking work in 2023. Across the city’s six towns, 6.1 per cent of residents claim unemployment benefits, almost double the national average.

Set against this background, the EU referendum rolled up a decade ago with the promise of more money for services such as the NHS, and a tightening of border controls. Almost 70 per cent of people backed Leave when the vote came in 2016.

The then Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall , who failed to win a by-election in Stoke-on-Trent Central a year later, called the city the “Brexit capital of the country”.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall called Stoke the 'Brexit Capital of Britain', then lost in a by-election for Stoke-on-Trent Central (PA)

Two years later, in an apparent endorsement of Mr Johnson's Brexit project, the constituency voted in a Tory MP. Jo Gideon moved from her home in Kent , some 200 miles away, to take up her seat.

Ms Gideon – ironically, a Remainer – tells The Independent the result was one of the biggest shocks of the 2019 election. She was selected as the Tory candidate just 10 weeks before the poll, and was tasked with delivering 55,000 leaflets across the constituency…