Chris Webb on the rise of Reform UK, toxic online discourse and key moments of first year
PLUS: United Utilities celebrate record profits as people feel the pinch as water bills surge
Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.
Today we have the second part of our interview with Chris Webb, which sees himself acknowledge the challenge brought by Reform UK, his achievements and challenges one year into being an MP - and the differences between talking to people in real life compared to the toxic nature of social media.
Lorraine Beavers has raised the issue of the Jameson Road landfill, which we’ve continued to report on over the last month, at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. You can watch that in this newsletter if you can stomach the schoolyard braying.
And we also report on United Utilities plans to pay record dividends to shareholders despite rocketing bills in 2025 so far.
Chris Webb on the rise of Reform UK, toxic online discourse and key moments of year one
By Michael Holmes
This part two of our interview with the MP for Blackpool South. You can read the first part here.
I ask Chris if, when politicians are invited on to primetime radio and television programmes and quizzed about social issues such as trans rights, audiences would rather hear questions such as: “How come energy bills are £250 a month and water rates nearly £80 a month? Why are pints £6?”
“Well, it’s the economy,” he starts. “When it comes down to it, every election is, ‘Do you feel better off than before?’ And that’s right. But I think, you know, the media has changed. They no longer make their money from the newspapers, they do it online and it’s now a clickbait generation.”
He adds: “That’s the way the media has gone. That’s how presenters want to make a name for themselves so they can progress their careers.
“I understand that. That’s the name of the game, but when it comes down to the average person, it’s about their life, access to good healthcare, having money in their pocket to enjoy life and not just survive.
“Unfortunately, far too many people in Blackpool in the last 10 years - and it’s been getting worse in the last few - are just surviving and that has to change.”
It is not entirely lost on me that Chris says this in a park that has previously been branded one of England’s best but has also visibly declined under years of a Labour council; the free public toilets have been replaced by paid-for facilities and parts of the park have fallen into ruin. Even the Cocker clock tower is not showing the right time anymore.
So I ask if people will definitely have more money in their pocket by the next general election - and about the rise of Reform, a divisive party that had just days earlier taken control of Lancashire County Council on the back of big promises.
“You can never know about global markets,” Chris cautions. “If America does badly, the whole world catches a cold. If things stay stable, I do believe we will (have more money in our pockets).
“Wages are now growing faster than inflation for the first time in a long time. We’ve increased the living wages and workers’ rights - people have more security. We’ve seen inflation come down. We’ve seen slow signs of that. We have been in government just short of 10 months. That sort of thing will take time.”
(Office for National Statistics data shows that, in the three months to February 2025, average weekly earnings in the UK rose by 5.9% [or 5.6% when pay included bonuses] year-on-year. In the same month, the inflation rate was 3%.)
On Reform, Chris says: “In Blackpool, we don’t suffer fools lightly. We want action but we want to see that passion and that that individual will take them forward.
“I think what we saw recently in the last few days is that turnout was very low. People are very disillusioned. They want change. They voted for change last year. But they’re not seeing it as quickly as they’d like.
“We saw from the exit polls some people said, ‘This is a protest vote’. We hear it. We would be daft not to.
“(Reform) have now got to deliver in a way they’ve never had to deliver. It’s easy saying you’ll do all these fantastic things. You had one mayor saying they’re going to get rid of all the equality jobs in the council. Actually, there aren’t any.
“Now they’ve got to manage services. They’ve got to implement that and it’s how they do that. Some of their pledges are going to be incredibly tough. They say they’re going to get rid of chief execs and people on over £100,000 a year and they’re going to bring council tax down whilst improving services.
“Council will be cut to the bone. That is going to be difficult. So we wait and see. The public will hold them to account just as they’ve held us.”
If Reform does well in Lancashire, and elsewhere, surely the party, led by former Ukip man and Brexit champion Nigel Farage, deserves a shot at running the country, I suggest.
Chris says: “We live in a democracy where anyone has that shot at it. Any party, any individual, anyone can stand. People like to see a track record but they’ll also look at their policies going forward.”
The reality is, though, that Reform is already attracting votes. Why is that, and how can Labour secure votes for the next election?
“The attraction is Nigel,” Chris says. “He’s an incredible communicator. People gravitate to him. You can see that. And they see someone who is standing up for them, who is sticking it to the establishment - even though Nigel has been part of the establishment for a very long time. That’s part of his effectiveness. That is the appeal.
“There’s also, if you look at the voter pool who make up Reform votes, a big chunk is (made up of) people who have not voted before and have been disillusioned. The biggest proportion of people is Conservative voters. Yes, there’s some Labour but it isn’t many. I think for this election we saw Labour (voters) stay at home. We saw that with the low turnout.
“But it’s also people using it to give the government a bit of a kick.”
That segues nicely into my questions about abuse - both online and off.
How safe does Chris feel when he is in the resort with his young family, and at constituency surgeries and other public gatherings?
“There is now a security risk in this age,” he accepts.
“I’ve had threats. Serious threats that have come. But you’ve got to find that balance. When you’re out in public and you’re out and about, the public are great. They’ll come up and they’re respectful, whether I’m out in Stanley Park or having a few beers with the lads down Highfield Road.
“I can’t thank local residents enough for that.
“Unfortunately, you’ve got some idiots on social media who hide behind keyboards and screens. They want to incite violence and hate. But that isn’t the reality, the real world, and you’ve got to separate that.
“I’ve never had a bad interaction in public. Never. Everyone who has come up to me has been lovely, has been kind, supportive of my family and I’ve never had a problem - touch wood - and I don’t think I would in Blackpool.
“Online is a different story. They write about me, they write about my wife, they write about my son, they write about my family.”
Chris says there is a persistent false rumour that he is not from Blackpool - and even offers to show his birth certificate to anyone who asks to see it.
“Unfortunately, some of the threats that have occurred - that have been incited by certain individuals - have resulted in people saying they want to burn my house down, they want to set me on fire, they want me to burn in hell.
“To me, if someone who is in their Transformers pyjamas in their mum’s basement wants to type nasty things about me but won’t come to one of my Q&As personally, then I don’t let it bother me.”
Speaking of standing up to bullies, I ask Chris for his thoughts on the situation in Ukraine. In particular, I’m interested in his reaction to perceived pressure from the US for Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender territory to Vladimir Putin’s invading Russian forces.
He says: “You have to stand up and you have to make sure that any of the lies and the spin that is out there is rebutted. But you also have to stand up for what’s right. I know the stories of what my grandad fought for in World War Two, guarding Churchill at Chequers, what he did and what family members did. We’ve done that around the world, from there to Kosovo, to other countries across eastern Europe and other places, where we have gone in because it’s the right thing to do.
“We need to continue that. It’s about standing up, it’s showing our strength, because we do have it.”
And what about the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where thousands of women and children have been killed, according to the UN Human Rights Office?
“Hamas have to release the hostages. What they did was unspeakable, it was wrong,” he insists, referring to the terror group’s surprise October 2023 raid into Israel that saw militants slaughter almost 1,200 people and kidnap at least 240 more.
“But the retaliation from Israel, restricting aid, the bombs that have killed civilians and children, is wrong. You have to call that out and you have to take action.”
Calling for a ceasefire, Chris adds: “Aid has to get in to those victims. They are civilians living their lives. They are not Hamas or (part) of a terrorist organisation. In Gaza, half the people there are children. They have to be held to account for their actions, Israel. It’s not antisemitic to say that because it’s a country, we are not attacking a religion. But, you know, you also have to hold Hamas to that same level of scrutiny and that’s why we’ve always been clear with Hamas about returning the hostages.”
With Cillian beginning to stir from his morning nap, the interview comes naturally to an end. But not before I ask Chris about his unexpected triumphs and challenges over the last 12 months.
He says: “To start with the positive, I think the jobs fair (held in February at the Winter Gardens) was great. I never in my wildest dreams expected 4,000 people to turn up. The fact that businesses engaged and, with the help of the DWP and all of the team there, who are incredible, we were able to get 1,500 jobs on offer. Nothing had been done on that scale ever in the town and it’s now looking to be replicated across the country by different MPs. Five-hundred people got offered jobs on the day, 600 got offered interviews within the next fortnight.
“I’ve had people stopping me in the street thanking me for that jobs fair because they say, ‘I’ve now got a job. Thank you so much. I’ve got stability, I can pay the bills and support the family’. And it’s incredible and it’s why I’m doing this job.
“The challenges are when somebody gets in touch and says, ‘I can’t get my doctor’s appointment’, ‘I’m struggling with the cost of living’. That’s why I did the infant formula campaign and we managed to change government policy with that. We were able to get out 1,100 tins of infant formula to families that are struggling right now to make sure kids aren’t going hungry.
“But seeing people still struggling is heartbreaking. You get those stories where people come to you in crisis and that only fuels me to move faster, to make sure that people see that change as quickly as possible. Because people don’t deserve to live like that and they shouldn’t have to live like that.
“That’s what motivates me every day. It’s why I go down to London every week to do what I do. It’s why I’m engaging with the community all the time and out and about. This job gives me the ability to do some good and change my hometown and that’s what I’ve got to do.
“Because someone has to.”
‘The Jameson Road landfill site in my constituency of Blackpool North and Fleetwood has been producing toxic stenches for more than a year now…’
Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (14 May) saw Lorraine Beavers step forward to challenge on the topic of Environment Agency resources.
The Blackpool Lead’s investigations into the landfill over the past month led to one expert to tell us that the government department was not in a position to do everything it would like to protect the people of Fleetwood from issues like the Jameson Road landfill.
Lorraine Beavers, MP for Blackpool North and Fleetwood, brought this question to Keir Starmer when she asked:
The Jameson Road landfill site in my constituency of Blackpool North and Fleetwood has been producing toxic stenches for more than a year now, causing nosebleeds, headaches, vomiting and breathing problems for my residents. Will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring that the Environment Agency has the staff and resources to police such badly managed sites across the country, so that it can act swiftly and effectively to protect communities like mine?
The Prime Minister said that the residents of Fleetwood deserve better and that they won’t hesitate to take further action. He responded:
Once again, a hard-working Labour MP is clearing up the mess that was left behind. My hon. Friend’s residents deserve far better, and we expect rapid improvements. We are closely monitoring air quality and will not hesitate to take further action. She is right that we must tackle rogue operators who blight our communities. That is why we have boosted Environment Agency funding by £188 million, alongside tough new rules on incinerators and commercial fly-tippers.
Residents who have battled through two suspension notices and continue to report the odours from the landfill will likely take minimal reassurance from that - but it was heartening to see the issue given attention on the national stage.
United Utilities to issue biggest ever payout to shareholders - after customers warned of 32% water bill increase
By Jamie Lopez
United Utilities is set to issue its biggest ever shareholder payout after hiking prices for customers.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Blackpool Lead to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.