Once an industrial powerhouse famous for its potteries, the Staffordshire city of Stoke was at the helm of the industrial revolution and exported ceramics across the world.
Fast-forward to the 21st Century, following the demise of steel-making, coal-mining and other big industry, it is clear globalisation is no longer a friend to this federation of six towns.
But the city is now is at the forefront of another revolution. Stoke is Britain’s capital of Brexit, where 69% cast their vote in favour of leaving the EU.
And as calls for a so-called People’s Vote intensify, HuffPost has been to ask how its residents feel about their decision.
“Britain needs to be more like the Three Lions,” 44-year-old Brexit backer Tim Kelley tells me as we chat outside of Hanley’s central library.
“We should be roaring, telling the EU that we have as much to offer as they do.”
Like most people in Stoke, Kelley is not experiencing what Nick Clegg termed ‘Bregret’ and is as convinced by Brexit today as he was on June 23, 2016.
And as for the 700,000 people who marched on Westminster to demand a re-run? Don’t get him started.
“The Remainers, just because the vote didn’t go their way, are causing a lot of trouble where there need not be any,” he says.
“I have never been called stupid but if a Remainer were to say that, it says more about them than it does me”
- Tim Kelley
“We will do well, regardless, once we are out. It may take some time but the country’s future will be a lot brighter.”
Kelley, a warehouse worker who is currently unemployed, rejects oft-repeated arguments that the Brexit vote was fuelled by racism and mistruths, such as the discredited claim that £350m-a-week would be pumped into the NHS.
“Stoke has always had a nationalistic element, but there are lots of people here of different ethnicities and races and most of the population here, including those of different races and religions, voted to leave,” he said.
“I have never been called stupid but if a Remainer were to say that, it says more about them than it does me.
“We just want the best outcome for this country and the people that live here.”
Mum Karen Varley, in the town centre for her grocery shopping, was more succinct.
“I voted out, we want out,” she said. “I haven’t changed my mind and I don’t know anyone who has, so they can march all they want.”
David Peddlety, a labourer, added: “I voted Brexit. I don’t want a second referendum. We have already voted.”
Empty shops pepper the town centre and, while austerity has been punishing for most UK communities, Stoke residents could be forgiven for feeling envious of investment pumped into nearby Manchester and Liverpool.
“The narrative has been that somehow Stoke is insular, backward-looking and that elements of it are racist and that is why we voted Brexit,” says Gareth Snell, the Labour MP for Stoke Central who defeated ex-UKIP leader Paul Nuttall in a 2017 by-election. He sounds fed up with having to defend his constituents’ decision.
“You will discover that is not the case. There are deep societal inequalities that manifest in Stoke-on-Trent through housing, wage growth, access to service, which prompted people to vote leave because of their frustration with how society works as a whole.”
Is most of his correspondence from constituents about Brexit? “No. Most of it is about council issues, potholes, roads, access to housing, people who can’t get a doctors appointment, school funding.”
Of the letters that are about Brexit a “tiny proportion” are from those demanding a re-run of the vote while the “vast majority” are from people saying “let’s get on with it”, he says.
Snell is frustrated by a sense that some of his Labour colleagues seem not to understand Stoke. But his most pressing concern is that a second referendum could embolden the far right.
In 2009, the city had nine BNP councillors and now has none, but the far right still has appeal for some. Snell claims Anne-Marie Waters, the leader of the For Britain party, is in the area once every quarter.
“A lot of work has gone into making sure that type of politics does not have a place here but I could easily foresee a situation where that dominant narrative of being betrayed, being left behind again takes hold,” says Snell.
“We are a lovely city. We are not the prettiest city but we are decent, hard-working people who have made a decision and my view is what we have got to respect that.”
A recent poll by Channel 4 and Survation found the country had shifted to backing remain by 54%, but the figure for Stoke suggested the city would still back Brexit by 58%.
52-year-old social worker Doreen Chizhande is among the minority who backed staying in the EU.
“People now know what Brexit means and they are frustrated. Before they thought it was all about immigration but they did not realise it will affect everybody,” she says.
“Perhaps they are now changing their minds. I have heard so many people saying that, especially my friends with businesses.
“People in Stoke now feeling it creeping into their minds that maybe they voted for the wrong thing.”
Local historian Richard Talbot, 72, backed Remain on the basis he thought it was better for the economy, but he is adamant there can be no re-run.
He has housed asylum seekers and has no concerns about immigration, but says many people in Stoke of his generation do.
“I didn’t know how I was going to vote until I had the pencil in my hand but it was the worst political campaign I have ever experienced in my life.
“There is a lot of immigration in Stoke-on-Trent and a lot of people my age are concerned, not really because they are foreigners but because of the sheer volume of immigration.
“I know there is a big campaign to have another vote and to remain but the die has been cast and we have to follow through on that.”
Turnout for the Brexit referendum in Stoke was 65.7% but the city previously had the tag for the lowest voter turnout in the country at the 2015 general election - just 51%.
For some council elections in recent years the turnout has been just 37%.
“I don’t think for a second the people of Stoke would go for a second vote,” says Talbot. “They are like me and they support the majority.
“The turnout in Stoke is often deplorable and it is bad for democracy.
“To play around with the democratic process would be a huge concern. There are people who turned out to vote for Brexit who probably never voted in the last ten years.”
He added: “It would cause so much frustration that could be capitalised on by the far-right for their advantage.”
Someone who perhaps knows the city more than most, however, is Martin Tideswell, Stoke resident and editor of its most-read newspaper, the Sentinel, where he started as a reporter in 1998.
“I get lots and lots of people writing to me and telling me that they did know what they were voting for and, if I was to vote again, I would vote exactly the same again,” he says.
“And I think it is rather patronising for Remainers - or Remoaners as they call them – to keep telling them they didn’t know what they were voting for, that they were conned and that Remainers know better.
“It does feel quite condescending. People just want it to be March and for us to have a Brexit of some form.”
Asked what his readers think about the People’s Vote march, he said the issue hasn’t registered in Stoke.
“The only correspondence we have had about the People’s Vote march was people saying, why are they wasting their time?,” he says, from the paper’s office in Hanley.
“People are absolutely fed up to the back teeth of politicians, the chattering classes and washed up celebrities telling them that it needs to be different.
“It’s all of the same arguments that we heard in 2016, from Barack Obama to Tony Blair to Mark Carney to people from the IMF – every man and his dog.
“Most people take the view that Remain had all the cards. They had all the advantages, the government leaflets pumped out to people’s homes. They had all the big guns and they still lost.”
Tideswell does not agree with Snell’s analysis that the far-right will flourish and concludes by saying something that many Brexit voters may feel, that MPs who fail to back their constituents on leaving the EU in parliament could be “playing a very dangerous game” with their political future.
“If Brexit does not happen in March, you will see people get really angry. They will take that out at the ballot box,” he says.