(Bloomberg) — The UK Labour Party easily retained a parliamentary seat in a special election in northwest England, bolstering opposition leader Keir Starmer’s position ahead of a national vote expected in less than two years.
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Andrew Western won an open seat in the Greater Manchester district of Stretford and Urmston with 69.7% of the vote, an increase of 9.3 percentage points over Labour’s performance in the last general election. Conservative candidate Emily Carter-Kandola was a distant second, with 15.9% of the vote, according to results released early Friday.
The election was triggered by the resignation of former shadow education secretary Kate Green, who had represented the seat for Labour since 2010, to become Greater Manchester deputy mayor. The seat has been in Labour hands since it was created in 1997 and there was little expectation of a victory by Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservatives, who trail the opposition in recent national polls by a double-digit deficit.
Western said the result sent a “strong message” to Sunak’s government, according to the Press Association. “The Tories have given up on governing and it is increasingly clear that the British people are giving up on them,” he said.
Turnout was low amid bitterly cold conditions, with just over a quarter of the electorate casting votes. That compares with 69% in the 2019 general election.
The result will nevertheless cheer Labour, which aims to win back power in the next election after more than a decade out of office. While Sunak must call a national vote in January 2025 at the latest, but it’s widely expected to take place in spring 2024.
The swing in Stretford and Urmston mirrors a shift in another special election in Chester earlier this month, in which Labour’s Samantha Dixon increased the party’s share of the vote by 13.8%. The results suggest that opinion polls showing Labour with a wide lead are broadly right.
Conservative supporters will point out that governing parties often underperform in midterm by-elections.
–With assistance from Jon Herskovitz.
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