Labour wins five seats in Beds as Selous voted out

Sarah Owen holds Luton North for Labour

Conservative stalwart Andrew Selous was one of the biggest general election casualties in Bedfordshire, losing his Dunstable & Leighton Buzzard seat to Labour after 23 years in the House of Commons.

Labour won five seats with the others being Bedford, South Luton & South Bedfordshire, Luton North, and Hitchin, which straddles the county border.

Luton North MP Sarah Owen held her seat with a reduced majority and said she would work hard to win the trust of constituents, as Reform UK, the Workers Party and an Independent gained 14,000 vote between them.

Conservatives Richard Fuller and Blake Stephenson retained their seats in North Beds and Mid Beds respectively.

Ms Owen retained her seat with 14,677 votes in Luton North, with Jilleane Brown coming second for the Conservatives with 7,167. Reform polled 4,666, Independent candidate Toqueer Shah had 4,393, while the Workers Party of Britain got 3,914.

In her acceptance speech the MP said: "I love Luton, it's my home and I'm so proud to represent it. Thank you.

"I will continue to work incredibly hard to represent everyone in Luton North and win the trust of those who couldn't feel they could vote for us this time."

Rachel Hopkins won her seat with a majority of 7,510, although turnout was only 52%

Rachel Hopkins won the Luton South & South Bedfordshire seat for Labour with a 35.4% share of the vote.

She said: "People have voted for change after 14 years of Conservative failure.

"It's now up to us as an incoming Labour government to rebuild trust when it comes to the economy, rebuild our public services that have been decimated over the last 14 years, and rebuild trust and integrity in politics."

Andrew Selous loses Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard to Labour

Mr Selous's 23-year stint as an MP has come to an end as he lost the redrawn Dunstable & Leighton Buzzard seat to Labour's Alex Mayer.

Ms Mayer won by just 667 votes, to become the first Labour MP for the Dunstable area since 1966, when the town was in the old South Bedfordshire constituency, which included parts of Luton.

After two narrow wins in 2017 and 2019, Labour's Mohammad Yasin has been elected in Bedford for a third time, with a majority of 9,430, compared to 1,113 in 2019.

In second place was Conservative Pinder Chauhan - with Reform UK in third.

Mr Yasin paid tribute to his team and particularly his campaign manager, Shane Kelly.

Mohammad Yasin and his Labour team after his win in Bedford

Richard Fuller retained his North Bedfordshire seat with a much-reduced majority - 5,414 compared to 23,631 in 2019.

He won with 19,981 votes, and in second place came Labour's Uday Nagaraju with 14,567 votes.

Mr Fuller said the Tories needed to provide an "effective opposition" in the face of the Labour landslide.

He added that the Conservatives needed to be united as people did not like divided parties.

Conservative Blake Stephenson wins Mid Bedfordshire

Blake Stephenson has won back the seat of Mid Bedfordshire for the Tories with 16,912 votes, seeing off the Labour candidate who polled 15,591 votes.

The seat had been the preserve of Conservative ex-minister Nadine Dorries, who resigned in 2023, a year after Rishi Sunak took over leadership of the Tories, after Boris Johnson was ousted by his party.

A by-election in October saw Labour's Alistair Strathern win the seat with a 1,192 majority, overturning Ms Dorries's 2019 majority of 24,664.

Due to boundary changes which saw his home move to the neighbouring Hitchin constituency, he stood there in Hitchin this time and won the seat, which is mostly in Hertfordshire, but includes the Bedfordshire villages of Shefford and Stotfold.

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