Arguably the most important upcoming election in Hartlepool is the local council - a full council election due to recent boundary changes. The Pool has long been a messy place politically, so let's take this from the top

Our story starts on the Headland, an area physically cut off from the rest of Hartlepool and that harbours (no pun intended) an independent identity. This perhaps allowed Stephen Allison to win a council seat here without a party label in 2002.

Stephen Allison is the first of our protaganists. The son of the head of the local parish council and election agent in the 2001 general election, he'd been in and around Hartlepool politics for a couple of years before his election to council as an independent.

In that election agent role, he was supporting the Conservative candidate. The choice of party does seem to be rather incidental though, and more a matter of doing the boss/a friend a favour.

In 2004, Allison switches parties to UKIP and stands in the parliamentary by-election. This costs him his job, as he was employed by the former Conservative candidate. But the result is a good one for UKIP, holding their deposit and beating the Conservatives into 4th place.

While Allison had resigned his council seat to stand in the parliamentary election (being replaced by his father!), in 2006 he returns. He beats an independent candidate named Tim Fleming to become UKIP's only elected councillor that year.

Tim Fleming is re-elected to the council the next year by beating Derek Allison, Stephen's father. It's all very Game of Thrones in Hartlepool.

Meanwhile in 2010, Stephen Allison is defeated in re-election by an independent-turned-Labour candidate named John Marshall.

In 2011, he tries to reclaim his father's seat but loses to Tim Fleming by ONE VOTE.

Back-to-back defeats clearly prompt some reflection, and disagreements with the national UKIP organisation have been escalating by this point. So ahead of the 2012 local elections, Allison sets up Putting Hartlepool First - a localist party with loose ties to UKIP

It's pretty successful as parties go, coming second to Labour and winning four councillors. Alas, Stephen Allison was not among them as Labour won all three seats in the Headland that year.

This is where we leave Mr Allison, a figure of under-rated importance in UK political history. In Hartlepool he delivered the first real Eurosceptic knocks to the party system, a process that would culminate with the completion of the Brexit process 15 years later.

The irony is, just as Stephen Allison was giving up on UKIP during the Cameron years, the country was starting to wake up to it. In 2014 and 2015, Labour came closer and closer to losing the Headland again as Eurosceptics and localists gathered strength.

In 2016, disaster for Labour. They lose the Headland to UKIP by TWO votes in May and in a post-referendum October by-election their vote share collapses. The UKIP candidate sails home to victory.

That candidate? Tim Fleming(!), erstwhile adversary of House Allison, now in UKIP.

However, this would prove the apogee of UKIP in Hartlepool and nationally, as the party collapsed into infighting. All but one of their 6 councillors would leave the party in 2018 to become independents. The final straw was the leadership's stance on Meghan Markle (!)

This is where John Tennant joins our story. As the leader of Hartlepool UKIP, he followed in the footsteps of his predecessor Stephen Allison by leaving the national party to form a more local group.

So, just to recap, we now have two groups formed by ex-UKIPers.

Putting Hartlepool First, founded in 2011 by Stephen Allison.

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the Independent group formed in 2018 by John Tennant (including our old friend Tim Fleming)

Both groups do well in the 2018 local elections, but Labour still have the majority.

In February 2019, the Tennant-led independents formally rebrand as Independent Union. True to their UKIP origins, they remain localists and Eurosceptic, a combination which we should now know works well in Hartlepool.

The 2019 local elections go disastrously for Hartlepool Labour. Both the IU and UKIP gain seats, as well as two new Eurosceptic parties- the For Britain Movement and Veterans and Peoples Party.

Crucially, Labour lose their majority. This sets in motion a complex chain of events.

The most immediate consequence is the Labour leadership defects to the Socialist Labour Party. While it may feel a little late to be defecting to Arthur Scargill's vehicle for trying to keep the pits open, do remember that this is yet another Eurosceptic Party.

The second consequence is that John Tennant, leader of the IU, joins the Brexit Party. He'd kept up a good relationship with Farage (who had also become disenchanted with UKIP post-referendum) and joined the BXP's successful European Parliament campaign, becoming an MEP.

The third consequence is that the IU, now with a new leader, take control of Hartlepool Borough Council with the support of the Conservatives, and the Veterans and Peoples Party. The Pool now has a Eurosceptic administration.

It is around this time that we say farewell to Putting Hartlepool First, our first UKIP splinter group. They themselves splintered, with some councillors joining the VPP and the rest rebranding to Putting Seaton First.

In September 2019, the Eurosceptic parties running the council join the Brexit Party en masse - meaning that the BXP now had control of a council. Realistically however, the change was merely aesthetic.

In December 2019, this Eurosceptic coalition does very well in the parliamentary election with Richard Tice getting 26% of the vote - a very respectable result.

Post-election and post-Brexit, the aesthetic change is reversed and the IU is reconsituted.

Over the course of 2020, an increasingly demoralised local Labour party sheds members - including the group leader.

However, resignation from the party doesn't mean resignation from the council, and several of these ex-Labour councillors form yet another localist party: Hartlepool People.

So now we have two Labour splinter groups - the Socialist Labour Party and Hartlepool People.

And of course the original Labour Party still has a toe hold on the council.

The final change of allegiance worth mentioning is John Tennant has continued his Farage loyalism, and joined Reform UK becoming their first councillor on a principal authority.

The IU at large has not followed their erstwhile leader into his new party - so yet more factional divides afoot.

The Veterans and Peoples Party are making a serious go of the upcoming local elections, standing multiple candidates. As are Reform UK and the Hartlepool Independent Union. Having lost two leaders in the Pool, UKIP seem to have at last given up.

Hartlepool People doesn't seem to have registered as a party properly, so their candidates are listed as independents. The four Socialist Labour councillors are not standing for re-election. The orthodox Labour party might therefore be due a small comeback

Meanwhile Conservatives have not stood enough candidates for a majority. So even if the concurrent parliamentary by-election goes very well for them, they will still need support to administer the town.

It does not appear likely that the messy political party system in Hartlepool will resolve itself after May.