CLACTON-ON-SEA, United Kingdom, May 28, (APP/AFP):Having voted for
Labour, the Conservatives and then the eurosceptic UK Independence Party, voters in a faded seaside town are running out of places to turn in Britain’s upcoming general election.
Since its golden age in the 1960s, Clacton-on-Sea in the southeastern
English county of Essex has struggled to reinvent itself, a decline witnessed by 77-year-old John.
“There use to be lots of hotels in Clacton, but they are all bedsits
now,” he told AFP on the terrace of a fast-food restaurant.
The pier is “dead” in winter, he said, but “in the summer, you’ll
find lots of eastern Europeans working there,” added the former delivery driver, who moved from London 10 years ago.
Despite supporting Labour for most of his life, John went against
party policy in the 2016 referendum, voting to leave the European Union, believing Britain “can do better on our own”.