When you actually leave Westminster and ask people what they think of Great Britain, the first thing that hits you is not rage – it’s drift. Over the past few days, I travelled through Boston, Peterborough, Newcastle, and Sunderland, asking a simple set of questions. Is Britain heading in the right direction? What feels worse than five or 10 years ago? Do politicians understand peoples’ lives? And why are many voters moving away from the mainstream parties?

Not one person I spoke to believed the UK was heading in the right direction. That does not mean everyone agreed on every policy, or that they all wanted the same political answer. They didn’t. But the mood was remarkably consistent – the country feels directionless, its leadership feels weak, and current politics feels like a series of endless U-turns.

Keir Starmer was described to me, more than once, as exceptionally spineless. That may sound harsh, but it reflects something important. People are not just frustrated by bad outcomes. They are frustrated by the feeling they’re being managed, talked down to, and fed simplified slogans instead of honest arguments. Complex problems are routinely flattened into messaging exercises, which only makes the government look evasive and incompetent.

The trust gap this signifies matters because it colours everything else, especially immigration and integration. In Peterborough and Boston, I found myself repeatedly struggling to interview people because I could not find enough English speakers. I ended up loitering around the cathedrals to find people I could speak to properly.

That is not an abstract culture-war talking point. It is a practical change in how public space functions. If people living in the same town cannot easily communicate, integration is not keeping pace with demographic change. You end up seeing parallel lives in shared geography – like an airport waiting lounge.

Yet Labour still seems unable to discuss this plainly. Too often the response is to reach for the usual script about “diversity” and “tolerance”, as if repeating approved words can substitute for a serious conversation about social cohesion and a shared national identity.

But as we have seen with the rise of Reform, Labour ignores such concerns at its own peril. If they want to avoid potential extinction, it’s worth taking a leaf out of Denmark’s book.

There, the Social Democratic party held onto power, not by scolding voters or pretending that anxiety about migration was a racist media fantasy, but by adjusting to public sentiment and governing accordingly. It confronted failed integration directly, enacting laws to break up ethnic ghettos and so-called “parallel societies” rather than allowing them to become permanent features.

They showed what a healthy democracy looks like – one that responds before voters decide to take radical action. That brings us to Reform. Among interviewees who mentioned Reform, there was far less enthusiasm than social media might suggest. Scepticism about the party centred on the fact they don’t yet resemble a serious governing outfit and seem more like a version of the Tories that voters rejected in 2024.

The significance of this for Labour is not just that Reform isn’t sweeping up every disillusioned voter. It’s that Labour ispresiding over a broader collapse in confidence, including among people who still do not fully trust the insurgent option. I also visited the Bell Hotel in Epping that became the focus of last year’s anti-immigration protests after a resident sexually assaulted a teenage girl. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The hotel was boarded up, with gates outside. Security guards were escorting residents back onto the premises. Whatever your politics, images like that harden public opinion quickly.

In a country dealing with weak growth, strained services and high migration, they reinforce a sense that border control is reactive not controlled. People see that and conclude the state can still impose rules –just not for their benefit. That is the real audit of Labour emerging from these towns. Voters want direction, leaders who actually mean what they say, and a government willing to describe obvious problems in plain English.

As for today’s Gorton and Denton by-election, it will undoubtedly test whether Labour can still rely on tribal loyalty in places where trust is waning. And a warning shot about how sick voters are with the current state of affairs.