Friday dawn confirmed the trend that allowed Boris Johnson to win an outright majority in the legislatures for 2019. On that occasion, several Conservative MPs elected in northern England, in the post-industrial district formerly known as the Red Wall (color Labor).
A year and a half later, and despite the fact that the Labor Party had changed their leader, conservative Jill Mortimer won a seat in the House of Commons from Hartlepool. He garnered nearly twice as many votes as Labor candidate Paul Williams. There were 14 other candidates, and they all got very far away votes.
“I am very proud to be the first deputy conservative in this department in 57 years.” And “I’m very proud to be the first deputy in this city,” Mortimer said in his victory speech. “Business has taken people here for granted for a long time.”
It was the only parliamentary election on Thursday, due to the resignation of Labor MP Mike Hill, accusing her of sexual assault. Mortimer received 15,529 (51.9%) votes against 8,589 (28.7%) from Paul Williams’ Labor Party, with 57.7% abstention. The result was announced at around seven in the morning on Friday.
With this victory, the Conservatives now have 365 out of 650. The Labor Party has 199, followed by the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Scottish Nationalist (44), the Liberal Democrats (11), the Federal Democratic Party, Northern Irish Trade Unionists (8), the Welsh Nationalists (3) and Northern Irish Social Democrats (2) , ALBA, Scottish Independence (2), Alliance, Northern Irish Center (1), The Greens (1) and four Independent Parliamentarians.
Election marathon
The day before, the country had gone to the polls to elect city councils, mayors, and regional parliaments in Scotland and Wales. The results of these disputes will be visible throughout the day and into Saturday. The few disclosed brought bad news to the Labor Party: at the time of publication of this text, the largest opposition party lost 37 seats, while the Conservatives, Liberals and the Greens won.
Hartlepool, the constituency created in 1964, will be represented for the first time by someone from the Conservative Party. In 2019, Labor won 15,464 votes, largely due to a split in right-wing voters between the Conservative Party (11869) and the Eurosceptic Brexit (10603). With Brexit complete, Jill Mortimer brought these voters together.
After all, we have not been able to convince the pro-Brexit voters to return to the Labor Party. Labor leader Jim McMahon told reporters in Hartlepool it was a replica of the earthquake we felt in 2019.
Defeat is a thorn in the side of Kerr Starmer, who was elected in 2020 to replace former Labor Chairman Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer moved away from his more radical rhetoric, seeking to restore the center. So far, to no avail.
