++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: WE ARE REPLAYING THIS STORY, WHICH RAN ON 13 NOVEMBER 2019, AS PART OF OUR UNITED KINGDOM ELECTION COVERAGE++
ARCHIVE: Hartlepool - 11 November 2019
1. Various of colourful houses on the Hartlepool shoreline
2. Various of lighthouse
3. Close up of Hartlepool Borough Council sign
4. Various of fishermen offloading crabs from a fishing trawler
5. Fisherman Steve Horsley working on a fishing net
6. Horsley and fisherman Robert Corner working on a fishing net
7. Corner holding fishing net
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Corner, fisherman:
"My father, my mother, everybody voted Labour (UK opposition party). Now I voted UKIP (UK Independence Party) for the last...twice (last two elections) and I am voting Conservative (UK ruling party) for the first time in my life this vote. I hope Boris (Johnson, UK Prime Minister) fetches us out of this friggen EU."
9. Tilt up of Horsley working on a fishing net
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Steve Horsley, fisherman:
"Well (Brexit Party leader, Nigel) Farage started it off and the he walked away from it didn't he? You know I mean what was that about? And (Labour Party leader, Jeremy) Corbyn he has nothing at all for the likes of us people I don't think. Nothing at all."
11. Wide of Hartlepool Working Mans Club
12. Close of Hartlepool Working Mans Club sign
ARCHIVE: Hartlepool - 10 November 2019
13. Various of people in Hartlepool Working Mans Club
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Diana Jordan, hypnotherapist:
"I have always been classed as a Labour voter because my parents were always Labour, my grandparents were always Labour, Hartlepool has always been Labour and now I am not going to go Labour."
15. Various of lorry driver Clive Jordan at Hartlepool Working Mans Club
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Clive Jordan, lorry driver:
"I voted Labour all my life, but because of the way certain people are in Labour I have gone off of them now. I am not voting Labour no more. They've literally just blew it with me now."
ARCHIVE: London - 12 November 2019
17. Various of Tom O'Grady, lecturer in quantitative political science at UCL (University College London)
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Tom O'Grady, lecturer in quantitative political science at UCL:
"Seats like Hartlepool are seats where, if the Conservatives are going to win a big majority, they have to win seats like that. Hartlepool, about the 110th seat on the Conservatives' list of gains, but because the Conservatives are going to probably lose seats in Scotland to the Scottish National Party and lose seats in the south of England to the Liberal Democrats, they're going to have to gain seats in the north of England and the Midlands from Labour if they're going to win a big majority at this election."
ARCHIVE: Hartlepool - 11 November 2019
19. Various of a decommissioned oil rig at Hartlepool ship recycling facility
20. Wide of Brexit Party banner in Hartlepool town centre
21. Richard Tice, Brexit Party chairman and candidate for Hartlepool, talking to media
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Tice, Brexit Party candidate for Hartlepool:
"I am telling voters in Hartlepool they have been let down and betrayed by the Labour Party - that is betraying them on Brexit and has had a MP in this constituency for over 60 years and actually they have let down the voters here. I am going to pledge I am going to get a proper Brexit done. I am going to bring money and jobs into Hartlepool."
23. Wide of Labour Party campaigners including Hartlepool MP Mike Hill (red jacket) meeting in a parking lot
24. Close of Labour Party rosette on Hill's jacket
25. SOUNDBITE (English) Mike Hill, Labour Party MP in Hartlepool:
"The Brexit Party seem to think they come here with some southern billionaire candidate (Tice) and just waltz in the place. Well, the people of Hartlepool are not fools. They can see right through that and they'll consider somebody thinking that they can parachute into this constituency as bit of an insult to be absolutely honest, because the town deserves better."
26. Various of Hill handing out Labour Party pamphlets
27. Close of Labour Party pamphlet comparing the Conservatives and Brexit Party with Labour
In Hartlepool, a tough, proud port town whipped by bitter North Sea winds, people have long felt ignored by politicians in far-off London.
Not now, in Britain's Brexit-dominated early election.
Britain's political parties are battling to win Hartlepool and places like it: working-class former industrial towns whose voters could hold the key to the prime minister's 10 Downing Street office.
Once, it would have been no contest.
Hartlepool has elected lawmakers from the left-of-centre Labour Party for more than half a century.
But in 2016, almost 70% of voters here backed leaving the European Union.
More than three years later, the UK is still an EU member, and loyalty to Labour has been eroded by frustration.
Trawlers still land with holds full of fish, lobster and crab; but the number of boats has fallen, and fishermen rail against the quotas and red tape imposed by the EU's Common Fisheries Policy.
Fisherman Robert Corner, 74, says he will be voting for the Conservative Party on December 12.
"I am voting Conservative for the first time in my life this vote. I hope Boris (Johnson, UK Prime Minister) fetches us out of this friggen EU," he said.
Fellow fisherman Steve Horsley agrees and feels the Labour Party offers "nothing" to people like him.
"l've always been a Labour voter," said Diane Jordan, a hypnotherapist enjoying an evening of music and bingo at the Hartlepool Working Mans Club. "My parents were always Labour: my grandparents were always Labour. Hartlepool's always been Labour and now I'm not going to go Labour."
Jordan is now considering voting for the Conservative Party for the first time.
That's good news for Johnson, who pushed for the December 12 election, more than two years early, in hope of breaking Britain's parliamentary deadlock over Brexit.
If he gets a majority of the 650 House of Commons seats, he will be able to ratify his EU divorce deal – which he withdrew from Parliament last month after lawmakers demanded more time to scrutinize it – and take Britain out of the bloc as scheduled on January 31.
Tom O'Grady, a lecturer in political science at University College London, said the Conservatives need to win seats like Hartlepool to compensate for the likely loss of pro-EU areas in southern England and Scotland.
"They're going to have to gain seats in the north of England and the Midlands from Labour if they're going to win a big majority at this election," he said.
But the Conservatives' challenge is complicated by the insurgent Brexit Party, led by veteran eurosceptic Nigel Farage.
Farage rejects Johnson's deal with the EU because it would keep the UK bound to the bloc's rules until the end of 2020, and possibly longer.
He'd rather leave the EU without an agreement, which would free Britain to strike new trade deals around the world.
It would also, according to most economists, leave the country poorer, by imposing barriers to business with the EU, Britain's biggest trading partner.
Supporters of a "hard Brexit" like Farage dismiss such claims, and accuse both Conservatives and Labour of watering down and delaying Brexit.
Hartlepool, where the Brexit Party controls the town council, is the party's top target in the election.
Richard Tice, the Brexit Party chairman and its candidate for Hartlepool hopes to win over former Labour voters who support Brexit.
"I am telling voters in Hartlepool they have been let down and betrayed by the Labour Party - that is betraying them on Brexit and has had a MP in this constituency for over 60 years and actually they have let down the voters here. I am going to pledge I am going to get a proper Brexit done. I am going to bring money and jobs into Hartlepool."
Mike Hill, who has been Hartlepool's Labour lawmaker since 2017 and is running for re-election, says he's not worried.
Labour's complex stance on Brexit – it wants to renegotiate the divorce deal, then hold a new referendum on whether to leave the EU or remain – has angered some supporters.
But the party hopes its focus on social issues such as crime, health care and welfare – all affected by a decade of Conservative public-spending cuts – matters more to voters than Brexit.
He predicted locals might not warm to Tice, a wealthy property developer from the south of England.
"The Brexit Party seem to think they can come here with some southern billionaire candidate and just waltz into the place. Well, the people of Hartlepool are not fools," Hill said. "They can see right through that."
