Lancashire returns 'most spectacular result' in historic General Election
Plus: every Lancashire result as ex-ministers including Jake Berry voted out
Hello and welcome to today’s General Election special of The Lancashire Lead - and it’s one with plenty to discuss. I write this having not slept in approaching 29 hours but even with that caveat potentially affecting my thinking, it feels a pretty significant set of results across the county..
On a day when Labour earned a historic landslide across the country, Lancashire, as always, had its own stories to tell. Gone are former ministers Jake Berry, Andrew Stephenson and Paul Maynard and gone is long-serving MP Nigel Evans.
Gone are 2019 intake including Sara Britcliffe and Antony Higginbotham - all among the hundreds of Tories replaced by new Labour MPs.
But that only tells part of the story. Some had forecast a Labour clean sweep across the county and it was Fylde - the one rated as hard to judge - which broke that possibility. There, former Police and Crime Commissioner Andrew Snowdwen held on to Mark Menzies’ former seat by a margin of a fewer than 600 votes.
That 33.2% share was a drop of 29 points compared to last time around but in the context of the rest of the night, it was a relatively major success for the party. To say that about a seat like Fylde encapsulates just how dramatic the Conservative’s demise has proved.
But there’s still one seat which broke the mould more than any other and which was the second not to be won by Labour. Blackburn, which had been a Labour seat for almost seven decades, was won by independent Adnan Hussain by a margin of just 132.
Remarkably, just days earlier Hussain was facing pressure to step down for another pro-Palestine candidate and accused of splitting the vote. How glad will he be now that he didn’t listen to those calls?
Meanwhile, the man who Hussain was urged to back instead - Workers Party candidate Craig Murray - described the win as the “most spectacular result of the whole General Election”.
Local democracy reporter Bill Jacobs was at the Blackburn count and reported on previous MP Kate Hollern’s dramatic loss of support.
“The loss of the constituency which Labour had held since its creation in 1955 left party activists stunned as its 2019 vote of 29,040 shrank to just 10,836.
“Mr Hussain - backed by the Blackburn with Darwen Council 4BwD group who quit Labour over Gaza - got 10,518 votes as Mrs Hollern's majority of 18,304 vanished into thin polling day air.”
Bill Jacobs, Lancashire Telegraph
As Bill reports, Hussain made clear how and why he won the vote. He said: “This is for Gaza. I cannot deny that I stand here as the result of a protest vote on the back of a genocide."
There’ll be more to emerge from this one but in the meantime, I’d suggest reading The I’s piece on the constituency which was published before the vote.
Election results in every Lancashire constituency
Blackburn
Adnan Hussain (Independent) 10,518
Kate Hollern (Labour) 10,386
Craig Murray (Workers) 7,105
Tommy Temperley (Reform) 4,844
Jamie McGowan( Conservative) 3,474
Denise Morgan (Green) 1,416
Adam Waller-Slack (Lib Dem) 689
Tiger Patel (Independent) 369
Natasha Shah (Independent) 86
Blackpool North and Fleetwood
Lorraine Beavers (Labour) 16,744
Paul Maynard (Conservative) 12,097
Dan Barker (Reform) 9,913
Bill Greene (Lib Dem) 1,318
Tina Rothery (Green) 1,269
James Rust (Monster Raving Loony) 174
Gita Gordon (Independent) 148
Jan Cresswell (Soc Dem) 147
Blackpool South
Chris Webb (Labour) 16,916
Mark Butcher (Reform) 10,068
Zak Khan (Conservative) 5,504
Ben Thomas (Green) 1,207
Andy Cregan (Lib Dem) 1,041
Stephen Black (Independent) 261
Kim Knight (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom) 183
Burnley
Oliver Ryan (Labour) 12,598
Gordon Birtwistle (Lib Dem) 9,178
Antony Higginbotham (Conservative) 8,058
Nathan McCollum (Reform) 7,755
Jack Launer (Green) 1,518
Rayyan Fiass (Independent) 292
Mitchell Cryer (Independent) 169
David Roper (Independent) 151
Chorley
Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker) 25,238
Mark Tebbutt (Green) 4,663
Ben Holden-Crowther (Democracy for Chorley) 2,424
Graham Moore (English Constitution Party) 1,007
Martin Powell-Davies (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) 632
Fylde
Andrew Snowden (Conservative) 15,917
Tom Calver (Labour) 15,356
Brook Wimbury (Reform) 8,295
Anne Aitken (Independent) 4,513
Mark Jewell (Lib Dem) 2,120
Brenden Wilkinson (Green) 1,560
Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom) 199
Hyndburn
Sarah Smith (Labour) 12,186
Sara Britcliffe (Conservative) 10,499
Richard Oakley (Reform) 7,541
Shabir Fazal (Green) 4,938
Beth Waller-Slack (Lib Dem) 1,210
Lancaster and the Wyre
Cat Smith (Labour) 19,315
Peter Cartridge (Conservative) 10,062
Nigel Alderson (Reform) 6,866
Jack Lenox (Green) 5,236
Matt Severn (Lib Dem) 1,529
Morecambe and Lunesdale
Lizzi Collinge (Labour) 19,603
David Morris (Conservative) 13,788
Barry Parsons (Reform) 7,810
Peter Jackson (Lib Dem) 4,769
Gina Dowding (Green) 2,089
Pendle and Clitheroe
Jonathan Hinder (Labour) 16,129
Andrew Stephenson (Conservative) 15,227
Victoria Fletcher (Reform) 8,171
Zulfikar Khan (Independent) 3,108
Anna Fryer (Lib Dem) 2,039
Lex Kristan (Green) 1,421
Syed Hashmi (Workers Party) 336
Christopher Thompson (Rejoin EU) 190
Tony Johnson (Independent) 133
Preston
Mark Hendrick (Labour) 14,006
Michael Lavalette (Independent) 8,715
James Elliot (Reform) 5,738
Trevor Hart (Conservative) 5,212
Neil Darby (Lib Dem) 3,195
Isabella Metcalf-Riener (Green) 1,751
Yousuf Bhailok (Independent) 891
Joseph O'Meachair (Rejoin EU) 216
David Brooks (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom) 145
Derek Killeen (UKIP) 124
Ribble Valley
Maya Ellis (Labour) 18,177
Nigel Evans (Conservative) 17,321
John Carroll (Reform) 8,524
John Potter (Lib Dem) 5,001
Caroline Montague (Green) 1,727
Qasim Ajmi (Independent) 1,273
Rossendale and Darwen
Andy MacNae (Labour) 18,247
Jake Berry (Conservative) 12,619
Daniel Matchett (Reform) 9,695
Bob Bauld (Green) 2,325
Rowan Fitton (Lib Dem) 1,241
Tayab Ali (Workers Party) 491
South Ribble
Paul Foster (Labour) 19,840
Katherine Fletcher (Conservative) 13,339
Andy Hunter (Reform) 8,995
Ange Turner (Lib Dem) 2,972
Stephani Mok (Green) 1,574
West Lancashire
Ashley Dalton (Labour) 22,305
Mike Prendergast (Conservative) 8,680
Simon Evans (Reform) 7,909
Charlotte Houltram (Green) 3,263
Graham Smith (Lib Dem) 2,043
Thank you for reading this special edition of The Lancashire Lead. I’ll be back in your inbox on Sunday with with a regular issue of the newsletter. If you enjoyed reading, please share so others can find it and subscribe to receive future editions.
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