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Labour Councillor Katie Corrigan leaves after serving as chairman of Durham County Council. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT FOUNDATIONS of an unlikely new political structure have been laid after Labour’s once rock-solid support across County Durham crumbled. A seismic political earthquake, one almost impossible to overstate, has exposed fault lines in public opinion and Wednesday’s historic county council meeting cemented in place a new cross-party alliance. Rival leaders outmanoeuvred the existing ruling party when Labour lost its majority in elections earlier this month and former council chief Simon Henig stood down. Agreements between Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and three separate independent groups, meant Labour’s 53 councillors were left without allies to help them achieve the majority of 64 they needed to retain control of Durham County Council.
LABOUR’S stronghold on Durham County Council will face one its biggest challenges in more than a century when voters go to the polls this week. The 2019 General Election saw the party’s ‘red wall’ collapse in traditional northern heartlands, notably the North-East, with a swathe of new Tory candidates ousting sitting MPs. In County Durham, Tony Blair’s former constituency of Sedgefield was taken from Phil Wilson by Paul Howell, left-wing firebrand Laura Pidcock lost North-West Durham to Richard Holden while in Bishop Auckland Dehenna Davison replaced Helen Goodman. Many people had never voted Conservative before but for many people the election was being determined by the polarising issues of Brexit and the hard left agenda pursued by the Labour Party under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.