So how did the Northants political parties do?
Our analysis finds great nights for Labour and Reform UK, a terrible performance for the Tories, meh for the Lib Dems and the Greens will be happy
By Sarah Ward
The dust has settled after a status quo changing day of politics yesterday. Like the national picture, it was a great night for Labour in Northants, who increased their number of MPs from one to five. But it was also a great night for Reform UK, who while not returning any MPs to Westminster have now become the third party in Northants, doing better than the national polling.
We’ve crunched the numbers of the results across the county’s seven constituencies and compared them with the 2019 General Election, to get a picture of how voters have responded to the past five years and where they placed their votes this time.
The changes
326,302 votes were cast in total across the county on Thursday which is an 11.9% drop on the 370,472 cast in 2019. As the charts above show, it is the Tories who have suffered the most at this election with their 58.4% vote share gained in 2019 collapsing to just 29.8% this week. Labour saw its vote share increase from 28.7% in 2019 to 36.3 per cent. Newly formed party Reform UK did not take part in the 2019 election, but now has 18.3 per cent of the vote. The Greens and the Liberals are both on just over 6.5% of the votes cast on Thursday.
Labour
Winning in five of the seven constituencies was a major victory for the Labour party in Northants, with all of the seven candidates running in their areas for the first time. Collectively they gained 122,226 votes, or 36.3% of the vote, which is slightly better than the 34% gained nationally by the party. In 2019 the party had gained 28.7% of the Northants vote share.
But the newly elected MPs do not have the stonking majorities that many Conservatives won in 2019. Lucy Rigby, elected in Northampton North has the biggest majority as she won 43.5% of the vote share and has a majority of 9,014 votes. The new MP with the smallest majority is Kettering’s Rosie Wrighting, who won 18,009 votes, giving her a majority of 3,820.
Conservative
It was a disastrous night for the Conservatives in Northants, with the 2019 triumph when all MPs returned to Westminster were Tory, melting away. Three incumbent MPs (Andrew Lewer in Northampton South, Philip Hollobone in Kettering and Tom Pursglove in Corby and East Northants) lost their seats and the party which has been dominant in Westminster since 2010 returned just two MPs in the Daventry and South Northamptonshire constituencies.
In 2019 the party amassed 216,229 votes across Northants, which was 58.4% of the total. Their vote share almost halved on Thursday, with the party gaining just 100,383 votes equalling 29.8% of the vote share. Sarah Bool, the new MP for South Northants has a majority of 3,867.
No doubt the party’s internal scandals, rapid rotation of Prime Ministers and economic policies did it for the Conservative party. On election night many Northants Conservative members expressed their annoyance at the national party, with Andrew Lewer saying he had been let down locally and nationally (no doubt in reference to the police, fire and crime commissioner dramas and the departure of the West Northants council leader amid domestic abuse allegations).
Reform UK
The new party had what it must consider to be a great night in Northants. Fielding candidates in each of the seven constituencies it came third in every one. The party returned four MPs nationally, including leader Nigel Farage who won in Clacton, and picked up 14% of the vote share, but in Northants it did better than that taking 18.3% of the total votes cast (61503 of the 336,302 votes cast in Northants on Thursday went to Reform UK).
Candidate Scott Cameron did best in Daventry where he gained 10,636 votes, which was 20% of the 53,082 votes returned in the constituency.
Liberal Democrat
While it was a great night for the Liberal Democrats nationally, with leader Ed Davey’s catalogue of stunts throughout the election campaign translating into their best ever performance at a General Election (they increased the number of MPs from eight to 71) it was a relatively poor night for the Liberals in Northants as they saw their vote share drop across Northants’ seven constituencies from 8.3% in 2019 to 6.6%.
Daventry candidate Jonathan Harris, who is also deputy leader of the group on West Northamptonshire Council fared the best, gaining 12.7% of the vote share this general election. But his effort was still third behind Reform, who did better in Daventry than anywhere else (gaining 20% of the 53,082 votes cast in the constituency.)
Green Party
The Green Party will be happy with their results in Northants, as their vote share of 6.8%, is just about at the 7% gained nationally. In Northants this is an increase on the 2.8% of votes gained in 2019 and of the 336,302 votes cast across Northants the Greens gained 22,306. Their resounding success of the night was in Kettering, where former Mayor and leader of the Kettering Green Alliance Emily Fedorowyz ran an energetic campaign, which resulted in her getting 7,004 votes (13.9% of the total constituency vote).
What this may mean for the future?
While the polling stations have only just been packed away, Northants will go to the polls again in May next year in the local elections and the parties will already have begun to have some thoughts on how to campaign.
The Conservatives run both of the unitary councils, but if this general election vote follows through to May, it is likely that the ruling party will change. We will also probably see some Reform UK councillors returned and the Greens may look to capitalise on their vote share growth and try and gain some councillors on West Northants unitary.
NNJ did us all proud regarding the election and I look forward to you continuing to raise issues and keep us informed.
NNJ had a pretty good election as well. Excellent service to the community!