Media captionA look at the problems facing Labour in Oldham At Oldham's annual end-of-summer carnival you see the town's 20th-Century history in flesh and blood. The crowds mingle in the sunshine, kids queue for ice-cream, adults for fish and chips; young Asian women in saris or headscarves enjoy the fairground rides and shirtless men with dogs on chains watch performers on temporary stages. It is a tradition that dates back to Oldham's days of industrial greatness. Before World War One, the town produced more cotton than France and Germany combined. By the 1960s and 70s, more than 300 cotton mills working day and night had pulled in immigrant workers from across the Asian sub-continent. "This was a brilliant place for a young immigrant in the 1970s," Riaz Ahmad told me. He came here from Pakistan in 1974 at the age of 21, and has been a Labour councillor for much of the last 25 years. "The town was full of noise and smoke from the chimneys. The mayoress's chain of office has 365 diamonds - one for each of the cotton mills that operated here."
Image caption The ONS named Oldham the most deprived town in England Throughout, Oldham remained a Labour fortress. Though Winston Churchill was once the town's Liberal MP, Labour have been winning elections here hands down for as long as anyone can remember. But in June, Oldham, like most of post-industrial England, voted decisively to leave the EU, in defiance of Labour's pro-Remain stance. "I'd always voted Labour," Marlene Nurse, a retired schoolteacher told me. "But then we got a leaflet through the door from UKIP. We didn't know anything about that party so we went along to their public meeting. met Paul Nuttall there. It was an eye-opener. He was talking common sense. "We'd never heard anything like it from the Labour Party or the Conservatives. I thought - this is what we want. From then on we were committed."
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In 2005, UKIP polled less than 3 - propelling the party into second place. Oldham has drawn a new wave of migrants since EU enlargement in 2004. Related Topics Labour Party UKIP (UK Independence Party)
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37449630
The challenge facing Labour in Oldham - BBC News
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