The sun beams down on North Northumberland as historic and unprecedented election results unfold across the country. Labour coming to power, the Conservatives crumbling and the smaller parties on the rise. Keir Starmer celebrates Labour’s best result since 1997, Rishi Sunak mourns the worst Conservative result ever and the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Green Party have all broken records. But up in North Northumberland, all eyes are on Labour.
The result
After a hard-fought campaign, David Smith romped home to victory and achieved the first ever Labour victory in North Northumberland. The results were; David Smith (Labour): 17,855 votes (36.6%), Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Conservative): 12,788 votes (26.2%), Katherine Hales (Reform UK): 7,688 votes (15.7%), Natalie Younes (Liberal Democrat): 5,169 votes (10.6%), Georgina Hill (Independent): 3,220 (6.6%), Jan Rosen (Green Party): 1,743 votes (3.6%), Michael Joyce (Independent): 288 votes (0.6%) and Andrew Martin (Social Democratic Party): 92 votes (0.2%). David Smith achieved a swing of 21.6% from the Conservatives to Labour.
The result marked an end to Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s nine-year-long career as a Conservative MP and saw the Liberal Democrats achieve the lowest vote share that one of their candidates has ever received – as either a Liberal Democrat or a member of their predecessor Liberal Party. A far cry from “Labour can’t win here” and a far cry from Trevelyan’s 56.9% share of the vote.
The Green Party took their highest ever number of votes but scored 0.1% less than they did in the 2015 general election when they stood for the first time since 1987. Reform UK broke into third place for their first ever election in North Northumberland, pushing the once first place Liberal Democrats into a dismal fourth. The election saw two independent candidates, one of whom Georgina Hill make large inroads into Berwick-upon-Tweed, but failing to make much of an impact beyond the historic border town.
A little history
The constituency, which shares many similarities with the predecessor constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, was always a contest between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats with nobody else getting a look in. Former Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith lost the seat he had held since 1973 to Anne-Marie Trevelyan of the Conservative Party in 2015, bringing an end to Liberal dominance in the constituency.
Despite hopeful ambitions in the 2017 snap election, the Liberal Democrats were pushed into third place by Labour who took their place as Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s main rivals. The Liberal Democrats fell further in 2019 as Trevelyan rose higher but the MP who, as word on the street had it, expected to walk it, received a rude awakening on Friday morning as the Labour Party’s David Smith took the seat with a majority of 5,067 (10.4%). This overturned Trevelyan’s 2019 majority of 14,835 votes (35.3%) and helped to wipe the Conservatives clean off the map in Northumberland.
The Green Party held up a promise made many years ago that they would not disappear from the ballot paper, as evidenced by their constant presence in every general election since 2015.
North Northumberland has now seen the lowest turnout since 2005 with only 66% of voters turning up to the polling station, a drop of 6.8% from the last general election.
“Labour can’t win here”?
Labour has shaken off the decades long taunts of “Labour can’t win here” and “Labour has never won here” and made history by winning North Northumberland for the first time ever. Never before has a Labour MP ever been elected to this seat or the predecessor constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
But now, things have changed. Politics has been shaken up both locally and nationally. Nobody can take away David’s victory and never again can anyone say “Labour can’t win here”. But the question is, will David Smith earn his way to another victory in the next general election? Or will voters turn back to the Tories? Only one thing is certain, history has been made but the future must be won through hard work and delivery.
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