DURHAM Miners Association leader Alan Mardghum is dismayed that Reform UK now control Durham County Council, with 65 of its 98 seats.

But though Durham was Labour’s first-ever county council (from 1919), and has been Labour for 99 of the 106 years since, he wasn’t shocked at the rout which has left the long-dominant party with a miserable four councillors.

Labour, he says, have been asking for it. “People feel desperately left behind.” Keir Starmer’s government has kicked its core supporters in the teeth again and again: “The Waspi women betrayed, though they promised them justice while in opposition.

“The two-child benefit cap retained. Then, to add insult to injury, taking away the winter fuel allowance.

“People are sick to death of being treated like that. They want an alternative.”

Labour’s reaction so far confirms his worst fears: “They lose a council like Durham, that they ran for a hundred years, and the Prime Minister comes out saying ‘we’re not going to change direction, in fact we’ll speed up our plans.

“That’s like putting your foot on the accelerator rather than the brakes when you’re headed for a cliff. Absolute craziness.

“And it comes from an arrogance. These politicians, the political class, haven’t got a clue about working-class people or our communities. So we’ll see a repeat of that in places like Sunderland next year.” Mardghum says Labour councillors elsewhere will only survive if they start to visibly fight back against government policies.

This arrogance is exemplified in the way the Labour machine feels it can impose its own candidates on locals, whether or not they have any connection to the area. Parachuting right-wing factionalist Luke Akehurst from the Oxford party into the North Durham constituency last year was a case in point, and the mere mention of his name provoked streams of invective from local Labour members at last year’s Durham Miners’ Gala.

But Labour may soon discover that safe seats ready to tolerate being footstools for career politicians are a thing of the past.

“The community, the local membership of political parties, should have the right to choose who best represents their interests,” Mardghum says. “These people think they’re our betters — that the membership are good enough to deliver leaflets but not good enough to take part in the democratic process. People have had enough.

“We had that situation with the mayoral elections in the north-east. Jamie Driscoll [North of Tyne mayor from 2019-24] was the only Labour mayor in the whole region, and they decided that he wasn’t fit to be on the shortlist!”

Mardghum makes clear he has nothing against the mayor for the current, larger North East region, Kim McGuiness, but argues that “Jamie should have been on that ballot” and the high-handed dismissal of local agency by Starmer’s enforcers has caused lasting resentment.

The episode resulted in Mardghum himself leaving the party, after he received an email from the disciplinary committee showing a photo of him on a panel supporting Driscoll’s right to stand, and asking him to explain himself.

“I told them, ‘I’m entitled to voice an opinion. Just cancel my membership, stop the direct debit.’

“I don’t want to be part of a party that supports the genocide in Gaza, one that attacks ordinary working people. That’s not the Labour Party I joined in 1978.” Now he’s not sure who he’d vote for, expressing a wish for a serious left alternative.

None of this means Mardghum is resigned to the north-east falling to Reform. “They’re not an alternative. I mean, God, I couldn’t envisage a national government led by Farage and [Richard] Tice. The NHS could be done away with altogether.

“Reform have come along, promising the Earth, without any substance. No proper policies. Just a load of soundbites.

“But these people are on the rise, and there isn’t any response from the Labour Party.”

Was Keir Starmer’s speech attacking immigration, deploying echoes of Enoch Powell’s anti-immigrant language, not a response?

“That was absolutely disgusting,” he says immediately. “I remember the Rivers of Blood speech by Powell.

“It’s not migrants causing the poverty of millions of people in this country. It’s not migrants who’ve caused rising energy bills, or created problems in the NHS — in fact it’s migrants who help keep the NHS running.”

Starmer has sunk to “a new low” by scapegoating migrants, he believes, and he doesn’t think it will win any votes back from Reform.

“You remember my contribution last year at the Gala? I said thank God we’ve got a Labour government, but it’s not rocket science — if the Labour government doesn’t deliver for working people, they’re opening the way for Farage and Reform. And that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Is there a way for Labour to win back lost voters?

The DMA general secretary isn’t sure. “It might be too late. People don’t trust them. They don’t trust any of the Establishment parties.

“But if they reversed some of the policies, helped the Waspi women, looked at winter fuel, lowered energy bills, stuff like that.

“It’s the cost-of-living crisis. If they would address that, instead of blaming everything on migrants, they might reverse the trend.”

Because Mardghum, while finding Reform repulsive, says it’s important to separate the party from its voters. “The voters aren’t fascists, they’re hard-working, decent working-class human beings who are just absolutely fed up and betrayed by the established order.”

The disappearance of trade unions from communities has been cited as a reason the far right are able to grow unchallenged. The Durham Miners’ Gala on the second Saturday of July each year is the biggest celebration of working-class and labour movement culture anywhere in Europe. Can it play a role in reversing the rise of the far right through asserting quite different values?

“We do have a problem in the trade union movement. The mindset of my generation, when you just joined the union, is gone. Lots of young people don’t see the reason for it.

“You need fighting unions that put money in members’ pockets, that empower members, not unions that act more like savings clubs or give you holiday or car insurance discounts.

“As for the Gala — I’ll use that platform to oppose any party that seeks to scapegoat the most vulnerable. That’s the history of the Durham miners. We vociferously opposed fascism — in 1934 we passed resolutions calling on the government not to negotiate or strike trade deals with Nazi Germany.

“Our message has always been and always will be solidarity with workers worldwide.” That message will be loud and clear from the Gala on July 12.

By that point, the Pitmen’s Parliament at Redhills should also be fully restored, and Mardghum hopes it will again become a community hub and a space for the working-class culture that will never surrender to the far right.

Speakers including Eddie Dempsey of RMT and Sharon Graham of Unite, Palestinian ambassador Husam Zomlot, Chris Peace of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and more will address the rally on the Gala field.

But what about the Reform leader of Durham County Council?

“No way. They’re not getting an invitation from the Durham Miners Association,” he says firmly. “They can show up if they like, join the marches through the city if they wish, but they are not getting any platform from us.

“A few years ago [when the Tories made big gains in the north-east] I was asked about inviting Boris Johnson. And I said no, do you understand the history, the conflict between the Tories and the miners?

“But then — we haven’t invited Starmer either. So that levels it up!”