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12

Jul 2023

Last Updated: 12/07/2023
Politics
Politics

By-election could give Harrogate district its first ever Labour MP

by John Grainger

| 12 Jul, 2023
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Keir Mather could become the district's first Labour MP if a recent poll is an accurate predictor of the by-election result on July 20.

The Harrogate district could be set to get its first ever Labour MP when voters turn out for the Selby and Ainsty by-election next week, according to an opinion poll. 

The survey by JL Partners reveals Labour could win a landslide victory on July 20 in the traditionally Tory constituency, with 41% of the vote – up 16 points on the last election.

No Labour MP has ever represented any of the Harrogate district constituencies: Harrogate and Knaresborough, Skipton and Ripon, and Selby and Ainsty.

The poll has the Conservatives on 29% (down 31 percentage points on last general election), Reform UK on 8% (+8), the Lib Dems on 6% (-3), the Greens on 6% (+3), the Yorkshire Party on 4% (+1), and the others on 6% (+6). 

A Labour victory – which political analysts Electoral Calculus sees as a 66% probability – would be a remarkable upset in a constituency it has never before won.

Selby and Ainsty has been held by the Conservatives since its creation in 2010, with MP Nigel Adams increasing his share of the vote at successive elections from 49% in 2010 to 60% at 2019. 

Labour candidate Keir Mather, 25, would become the youngest current MP if he wins.

A Labour spokesperson told the Stray Ferret:  

“It will be a mammoth task to overturn a 20,000 Conservative majority, and the biggest Labour has achieved since the end of the Second World War.  
“Labour's Keir Mather is speaking to hundreds of voters on the doorstep who want change, and for him to be their MP and a strong voice fighting on their behalf in Westminster.” 


A Conservative Party spokesperson told the Stray Ferret the party never comments on opinion polls.

Cabinet minister Nigel Adams was a Boris Johnson loyalist and stepped down last month after his name did not appear on Mr Johnson’s retirement honours list. The constituency has been unrepresented at Westminster since then. 



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The Harrogate district is mainly represented by the MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, but large areas fall within other constituencies.

The vast Selby and Ainsty constituency includes Huby, Follifoot and Spofforth, as well as several villages in the Vale of York, including Great Ouseburn, Green Hammerton, Kirk Hammerton and Tockwith. Its main towns are Selby, Tadcaster and Sherburn-in-Elmet, and at its southern end it includes Drax power station and reaches nearly as far as Goole and Doncaster.

The Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency has only ever been held by the Tories and Liberal Democrats, and Skipton and Ripon has only ever been held by the Conservatives. The Selby and Ainsty constituency was formed from the Vale of York constituency – which was perennially Conservative – and the Selby constituency, which swung from Conservative to Labour.