Chris Webb, one of Labour’s newest MPs, has taken his seat in the Commons after winning the Blackpool South by-election.
Mr Webb won the Lancashire seat after securing nearly 60 per cent of the vote and the third-biggest swing from the Tories to Labour (26.3 per cent) in a by-election since the Second World War.
He beat Conservative candidate David Jones in the contest to replace ex-Tory MP Scott Benton, who was forced to quit after becoming embroiled in a lobbying scandal.
“The people of Blackpool have spoken for Britain,” Mr Webb said following his victory. “They have had enough of this failed government, people no longer trust the Conservatives.”
Since the 2019 general election, there has been a total of 23 by-elections across the UK – two of which have taken place in Scotland with the remainder being held in England.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have, at the expense of the Conservatives, gained eight and four seats respectively.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party has held five of its seats and lost one to Mr Galloway, while the Tories have managed to hold one, scraping a narrow victory – 495 votes – in Uxbridge & South Ruislip, a contest that was dominated by the expansion of Ulez in outer London.
The SNP held on in the one seat it was defending in Airdrie and Shotts, with the party’s candidate Anum Qaisar winning comfortably with a majority of 8,779.
Labour’s Blackpool South win was the party’s seventh by-election victory since the 2019 general election.
It was the latest in a string of by-elections that have been triggered by deaths, resignations and MPs being booted out of their constituencies for bad behaviour.
More than 100 MPs – most of them Conservative – have also announced they will not stand at the next general election.
With just months to go before a general election, and Labour commanding a huge lead in opinion polls, some 64 MPs have decided to call it a day- although that number could rise to as many as 100, according to The Sunday Times.
Nadhim Zahawi, on 9 May, became the latest MP to announce his departure, saying in a statement that the time was right for a “new, energetic Conservative to take over” his Stratford-on-Avon seat.
Former prime minister Theresa May announced in March she would not stand again as she became the most high-profile departing MP since Boris Johnson resigned after being found guilty of misleading MPs over the Partygate scandal.
