Labour seizes Cumbria winning five of six seats
Josh MacAlister was the first of Cumbria's new Labour MPs to have their result announced
- Published
Labour won five of Cumbria's six seats as they enjoyed a resounding success in the general election.
The Conservatives lost Carlisle, Penrith and Solway, Whitehaven and Workington, Barrow and Furness and Morecambe and Lunesdale.
Liberal Democrat Tim Farron was re-elected in the redrawn Westmorland and Lonsdale seat with a 63% vote share.
One of the new Labour MPs thanked the county's voters for placing their faith in the party.
Julie Minns won Carlisle - the first time the city will have a Labour MP for 14 years
Julie Minns won Carlisle with 18,129 votes - 5,200 more than John Stevenson who had been the city's MP since 2010.
Markus Campbell-Savours also won by about 5,200 votes over Mark Jenkinson in Penrith and Solway.
His father and former MP for Workington, Dale Campbell-Savours, was at the count at Whitehaven Sports Centre to support him.
Mr Jenkinson, the former MP for Workington, blamed turmoil "driven a lot by internal party politics", as well as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine for the Conservatives' poor performance in the general election.
He said: "Elections are a brutal game, so we just take it on the chin and rise again."
Markus Campbell-Savours was supported by his father, a former MP
Josh MacAlister secured 53% of the votes in Whitehaven and Workington, his 22,173 votes significantly more than second-placed Reform candidate David Surtees' 8,887.
Conservative Andrew Johnson finished third, 432 behind Reform.
Mr MacAlister thanked his staff, supporters and volunteers, saying he owed them a "huge debt of gratitude" for their work over the campaign.
Among the priorities that resonated with the electorate, Mr MacAlister quoted reducing NHS waiting lists and protecting the nuclear industry.
Mr Farron, who has been MP since 2005, secured 31,061 votes, with second-placed Conservative Matty Jackman securing 9,589.
Tim Farron said he was "delighted" at being re-elected
The former Liberal Democrat leader said: "We need to tackle the lack of affordable housing, all the health-related issues we face locally and the need to protect our environment, not least of course our waterways, our lakes and the plight that many of our farmers face.
"It’s a great challenge and I’m delighted to get on with doing it."
Labour's Pippa Smith came fourth with 2,306, behind James Townley of Reform who got 4,842.
Michelle Scrogham won Barrow and Furness for Labour, ousting Conservative Simon Fell, while her party colleague Lizzi Collinge secured Morecambe and Lunesdale.
Ms Scrogham said: "It's incredible, very humbling, and, just so much gratitude to the people of Barrow and Furness that have put their faith in me."
Analysis: 'Conservatives wiped off political map'
By Bob Cooper, political reporter, BBC Radio Cumbria
Cumbria is a county where plenty of seats have changed hands in recent elections.
The story of previous years was one of Conservative gain at the expense of Labour. The Tories picked off all of the party’s Cumbrian constituencies between 2010 and 2019.
But last night saw all of that reversed.
First Labour strolled to a comprehensive win with more than half the votes in Whitehaven and Workington, a new seat that was notionally Conservative at the start of the night, based on 2019 results.
The Tories were pushed into third place there by Reform UK.
Labour went on to take three more seats in the county, as well as Morecambe and Lunesdale which includes a small sliver of Cumbria.
Even the new seat of Penrith and Solway, in which the Conservatives had a notional majority of more than 13,000, wasn’t safe from the new party of government.
The constituency’s new MP Markus Campbell-Savours will follow his father Dale’s footsteps into Parliament. He used to represent Workington in the Commons before becoming a Labour peer.
It was a very good night for the Liberal Democrats in their top target seat in Cumbria.
Tim Farron had been the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale for nearly 20 years, but boundary changes favoured the Conservatives in a new constituency of the same name.
It did not stop Mr Farron sweeping to victory with a majority of more than 21,000.
It is a set of results that has wiped the Conservatives off the political map in this county and will leave them with a major rebuilding job to become a force here once more.
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