In leave-voting former pit villages, many agree with the MP’s decision to support Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal
Of the six Labour MPs who rebelled and voted with the government on Saturday, only one, Caroline Flint, is standing again in the next general election. But in her constituency of Don Valley, which she has represented for 22 years, that decision seems unlikely to be a costly one.
Explaining her decision, Flint revealed a stark statistic: in the mining villages in this part of South Yorkshire, she wrote in the Sunday Times, 80% of voters backed leave in 2016 (over the whole constituency the figure was 68%). Parliament has not been listening to these people, she wrote: “The voices in our mining villages remain unheard, despite their support for Labour over many decades.”