Simon Lightwood has won the Wakefield by-election overturning the Conservative majority of 3,358 to deliver a 4,925 majority for Labour. He won 13,166 votes, while the Conservative Nadeem Ahmed received 8,241 votes.
Wakefield parliamentary by-election result
LAB: 47.9% (+8.1)
CON: 30.0% (-17.3)
IND (Akbar): 7.6% (+7.6)
YRK: 4.3% (+2.4)Labour GAIN from Conservative.
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) June 24, 2022
This will be cheering news for Keir Starmer, who has been recently taken flak from his own MPs for being boring. It also begins the process of retaking seats in the Red Wall lost to the Tories in 2019.
Our thanks to Jamie Needle for offering Wakefield voters the option to vote Liberal Democrat.
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2 Comments
Yes. Thankyou Jamie Needle. You must be feeling like a bit of an afterthought today, but we appreciate what you did for us these past few weeks.
It was certainly an excellent result for the Lib Dems in Tiverton. Well done for that; but was this really “cheering news for Keir Starmer”?
At a time when the situation could hardly be more favourable, with the Tory party in complete disarray, it’s not such a great victory for Labour. The percentage polled in Wakefield was 47.9% compared to 49.7% in 2017.
The number of Labour votes in Wakefield was 13,166. Down from 22,987 in 2017. This was when the weather conditions were ideal for a better than usual bye-election turn-out. The overall low figure of 39.5% is an indicator of the level of abstentions and apathy. 60.5% or registered electors just didn’t see the point. How much higher would this figure have been if we included all those who didn’t bother to register in the first place?
Labour still lost nationally in 2017. The likelihood is that the Tories will pull themselves together and be in slightly better shape by the time the next election is called. Labour cannot be considered to be ‘on-track’ for a return to Government.