An abiding myth of UK politics — if viewed through the prism of Westminster — is that the Midlands and the North of England are hotbeds of reaction. Once “Labour heartlands,” they are, so the story goes, ready and waiting to be taken by the Right. All that’s required is for Boris Johnson to don a Union Jack cape and mutter the words “get Brexit done” at every media appearance and stage-managed rally, and Labour seats in the region will fall like dominoes.

The politics of Brexit is key to all this. The Tories have geared their campaign almost entirely toward Brexit, while Labour’s latest Brexit policy will include a second referendum to vote on a new deal. With a third of Labour’s support having voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the Tories believe they have a real wedge issue that can get them a hearing in places they would not ordinarily dream of taking.

The city where I live typifies this. Stoke-on-Trent — halfway between Birmingham and Manchester — has ritually returned Labour MPs since the 1950s. At the same time, in 2016, it voted by two-thirds to leave the EU. It’s for this reason that when the Labour MP Tristram Hunt stepped down in 2017, the newly minted leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Paul Nuttall, made an attempt to take the seat at the ensuing by-election.