Over the last few weeks I’ve been travelling up and down the East Coast, visiting places that already have Reform MPs, and places they are targeting in the upcoming local elections. You can find the other pieces below.
I’ve saved the most interesting for last: Sunderland.
I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a Sunderland supporter, as were my dad and grandad. I grew up in East Durham and spent a lot of my time in the city. So this one matters.
In these elections, Reform are targeting Sunderland hard. Nigel Farage has visited several times, and if you spend any time on local social media, their supporters already sound like they’ve won.
On paper, Sunderland shouldn’t be an easy target.
Across the places I’ve visited, Reform’s strongest areas tend to share three characteristics: high economic inactivity, weak local economies that depend heavily on pensions and benefits, and a sense of civic decline. They are often end-of-the-line coastal towns—physically and economically cut off, with little sense of momentum.
Sunderland doesn’t really fit that pattern.
It has solid transport links by road and rail, and Newcastle Airport is close enough to matter. More importantly, it still has a functioning civic life. Theatres, live music, the “Music City” initiative—this is not a place where public life has simply withered away.
The Bridges shopping centre isn’t Harrods, but it’s busy, open, and functioning. There are shops, there are shoppers, and there’s even a new Waterstones. That might sound trivial, but after walking through half-empty 1970s shopping centres in town after town along the coast, it isn’t.
And then there’s the football. Sunderland are back in the Premier League and making noise. Of the 20 Premier League clubs, 17 sit in Labour-held constituencies (quiz fans can work out the other three). It’s not just sport—it’s a signal of confidence, of relevance, of a city that still believes it belongs at the top.
But the real difference is economic.
In the 1980s, Sunderland lost the heavy industry that defined it. What followed was a long period where the city became heavily dependent on public spending. Benefits and pensions became a major part of the local economy. It was a place that struggled to pay its way, and that erosion of economic purpose took a toll on confidence and self-belief.
Over the last decade, that has started to change.
Sunderland’s economy is more active, more diverse, and closer to standing on its own two feet again. Most people don’t think in those terms—but you can feel it. The mood is different. The city feels more confident, more creative, more willing to look outward.
For decades, Sunderland was a place people left. The most ambitious went elsewhere and rarely came back. That’s why you find Sunderland fans all over the world—not because of glory, but because so many people had to go.
Now, more people stay. And some are starting to come, to study, work and live.
So why, with all that progress, is Reform so confident here?
Part of the answer lies just a few miles down the coast in Seaham.
Seaham has already turned away from Labour and the Conservative-led council that followed, electing Reform to run the county. A year in, very little has changed. The issues they campaign on—especially immigration—aren’t controlled at council level, so the result is a lot of noise and not much delivery.
And yet the vote made sense locally.
Seaham feels very different to Sunderland. It’s more provincial, older, and far closer—economically and demographically—to places like Clacton or Great Yarmouth than it is to Sunderland city centre. Fewer people work, the population is older, and the local economy leans heavily on pensions and benefits.
Sunderland, by contrast, has been trying to reinvent itself as a modern, diverse city. Seaham largely isn’t. It wants stability, not change.
That divide exists within Sunderland too.
What I’ve described so far is the city centre—the visible, improving Sunderland. But many people live in outlying estates that feel much closer to Seaham than to Keel Square. They’re not drinking oat lattes at Pop Recs or eating Caribbean food in Sheepfolds. They’re living in places where the economic recovery feels distant, abstract, or simply not meant for them.
Those are the voters Reform are targeting.
And the message is simple: you can use this election to push back. To send a message. To “take control” again.
Immigration sits at the centre of that message. Sunderland is attracting new people—students, workers, professionals. The new medical school is a big draw. But those arrivals aren’t all white, and for some people, that’s the point. Social media does the rest, feeding a steady stream of grievance and resentment.
So Sunderland faces a real choice.
It can carry on becoming a more confident, outward-looking city—diverse, economically active, and increasingly self-sustaining.
Or it can turn inward—more defensive, more resentful, and more willing to believe that its problems are someone else’s fault. And go back to being dependent on other people’s taxes.
That’s the choice Reform are betting on.
The Three Premier League teams who don’t play in Labour consistuencies are Brighton (Green), Arsenal (Jeremy Corbyn, Independent) and Aston Villa (Ayoub Khan, Independent).
