I probably think about Essex more than the average person. I grew up there before my career took me to London. I’ve since returned and now commute between the two.
My upbringing in many respects was the archetypal Essex story. I was born in Dagenham, a town that was once part of the county before it became absorbed into Greater London in the 1960s. As my parents worked full-time, I spent much of my childhood at my nan and grandad’s house just off the Heathway - the main high street leading up to the station.
I would accompany my grandad on his stroll up the Heathway to get the morning paper, enticed by the promise of sweets. The elderly man behind the counter would greet us with a warm but knowing smile. I was too young at the time to understand - and, as is typical of his generation, my grandad never mentioned it - but both men had served in World War 2. It’s strange to think about that now.
This would have been the mid to late nineties. I was around seven. The date is important because not long afterwards, Dagenham changed beyond recognition. The newsagent we’d fetch the morning paper from was replaced by an Afro-Caribbean hair salon. A nail parlour and chicken shop sprang up next door.
I had a good ten more years with my grandad during this period of large-scale transformation before he died, and a particular kind of Britain went with him.
Census data would later confirm my subjective reality. A place that was almost exclusively White British in the late 1980s fell to 80 per cent White British in 2001, then to 49 per cent in 2011, and to just 31 per cent by 2021. Over the same period the Black population rose to around a fifth of the borough, South Asian communities to about a quarter, and other White non-British groups, including Eastern Europeans, also grew substantially.
This rapid demographic shift was compounded by deindustrialisation. Ford Dagenham became a potent symbol of this decline. Once Europe’s largest car factory, bringing jobs and security to generations of the white working class, it stopped making cars in 2002.
No one has a better grasp of the twin impact of these changes than the writer Paul Embery. Like me, he grew up in Dagenham but, being 15 years my senior, lived through that upheaval.
A lifelong trade union activist and prominent figure in the Blue Labour movement, Embery heaps as much opprobrium on Margaret Thatcher as he does on Tony Blair for unleashing market forces that displaced the local white working-class community.
He would have seen the writing on the wall when mainstream politicians framed any local pushback as racist bigotry - a contempt that handed the British National Party its best-ever result in local government elections and later gave us Brexit.
With crime on the rise, my parents, too, saw the writing on the wall. Both had worked tirelessly to achieve enough social mobility to leave the area. We then moved - or were pushed - further out into Essex. I was around nine at the time.
I relay my specific story because it’s now playing out in towns and cities across the country. Migration remains the number one issue for British voters, exceeding the economy and the NHS, the latest polling shows. This trend remains constant month on month. The conspicuous rise of migrant hotels in traditional working-class areas has only increased its salience.
Now elections are fought and won on the perception that politicians will stop the boats. What else explains Reform UK’s meteoric rise in a little over two years?
The people of Essex have a lot to say on this matter, as they were patient zero in an experiment no one consented to - an experiment that has resulted in large-scale white flight and an elitist crackdown on popular resentment.
When this messaging comes from a celebrity, it can shift the centre of political gravity in the country. The most instructive example of this came last year when Essex-born Rylan Clark put his head above the parapet.
The reality star’s extraordinary intervention on ITV’s This Morning came as Epping - a leafy market town in Essex - found itself at the centre of Britain’s immigration debate after an asylum seeker staying at the town’s Bell Hotel was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He was subsequently convicted.
In a discussion with journalist Camilla Tominey and The Apprentice winner-turned-judge Tim Campbell, Clark said: “I find it absolutely insane that all these people are risking their lives coming across the Channel. And when they get here, it does seem, and I think this is why a lot of Labour voters as well are saying there’s something wrong, it feels like, ‘Welcome, come on in.’ That’s the narrative we’re being fed.
“’Here’s the iPad. Here’s the NHS in reception of your hotel. Here’s three meals a day. Here’s a games room in the hotel. Have a lovely time and welcome.’”
The former X Factor star’s comments were significant for several reasons. Clark had never made overtly political statements before, so every word landed like a gut punch. He wasn’t playing to his base - evidenced by the hundreds of Ofcom complaints he would receive - but was speaking from the heart.
Clark’s exasperation at how endlessly accommodating the British state is to its new arrivals resonated precisely because of his background; like my parents, who were born in Mile End, he lived in a council house with his mother Linda in Stepney Green before moving out into Essex.
He wasn’t born with a silver spoon; he worked hard to improve his lot. Imagine how it feels, then, when large groups of men cross the Channel on dinghies and are put up in cushy hotels at the taxpayer’s expense. Granting automatic rights to the unearned throws sand in the gears of social mobility. When someone from Clark’s background makes this point, the whole nation listens.
And the impact was felt immediately, generating columns in major newspapers and sparking further panel debates. Tom Skinner, another Essex success story and friend of Clark’s, tweeted: “I’m proud of you mate” as the sharks started circling on social media.
As a sidenote, Skinner’s own meteoric rise reveals something significant about the Essex story. He went from flogging mattresses in Romford to having a “BBQ an’ beers” with America’s vice president JD Vance last year. Skinner also has a growing influence in Westminster and is being talked up as a future leader on the right.
Returning to the Epping saga, one striking aspect was the nature of the protests. Yes, there was occasional trouble, which is to be expected when more than 1,000 people turn up outside a migrant hotel, but the protests largely took place without incident.
The Pink Ladies movement also emerged from the protests outside the Bell Hotel. It’s worth reflecting on the contribution these women have made to shifting the Overton window on immigration. For as long as I can remember, the mainstream media and politicians portrayed anyone who would protest against the influx of new arrivals as knuckle-dragging thugs.
I don’t doubt that this used to be the case, and it still is in many places, but suddenly images of desperate women holding up placards were attracting national coverage - women who could be your mum, sister or neighbour. These images punched through the illusion that this was a fringe issue obsession far-right football hooligans.
It’s easy to mock the “rough around the edges” Essex stereotype, but in an era that prizes charisma, authenticity and immediacy, it cuts through. It's why Nigel Farage's seat of Clacton, despite the current scandals engulfing his party, could still be his route to No 10.
Then there’s the inimitable Allison Pearson, the Daily Telegraph journalist who lives in Saffron Walden (her column about the bucolic market town in north-west Essex is well worth a read).
The journalist recently received a public apology and a five-figure payout from Essex’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Roger Hirst, after his officers paid her an unwelcome visit in 2024 for allegedly inciting racial hatred.
Pearson's refusal to be intimidated by the Orwellian state - her case became one of the most high-profile in a spate of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) - marks a major turning point in the ongoing fight over free speech in Britain.
Given Essex’s proximity to London, perhaps it’s no surprise that my hometown has proven to be a conveyor belt of influential media personalities. This isn’t a shallow phenomenon. It matters that there is a cohort of successful and inquisitive minds living close enough to the city to witness its destruction while maintaining a safe enough distance to present an alternative vision.
It doesn’t just benefit the South East but those Red Wall seats in northern England. How? Because, whatever our new prime minister might insist, London is the locus of power. When the good people of Essex wield their influence in the city to give expression to local grievances, it resonates across the country.
In my own humble way, I understand this influence. During my two-year stint at GB News, I told stories that I felt were being ignored or suppressed by the establishment media. I instinctively knew who the audience were, because I grew up with them. I subsequently felt a moral obligation to represent their interests as I took local and national government to task. I feel that responsibility at Outpost today.
The Essex story has not run its course. Tensions are simmering in the towns and villages that surround the Wethersfield camp, which sits roughly six miles north-west of Braintree.
The former RAF base is now home to about 800 migrants. In June, it was announced the number of residents would soon rise to 1,245 and the site would remain open beyond 2027. The residents have been getting the bus into Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford.
All this suggests that, like his predecessor, Andy Burnham will be in an uncomfortable marriage with my hometown. Is it too late to relocate No 10 North?
Your article resonates with what Chelmsford has and is experiencing.
Excellent, heartfelt piece that will resonate with so many people.