- Barking by-election, 1994
The Barking by-election was held on
9 June 1994 , following the death of Labour PartyMember of Parliament for BarkingJo Richardson . Richardson had represented the seat since the February 1974 general election, followingTom Driberg .The seat had been continuously held by Labour since it was created in 1945, and Richardson had retained her seat comfortably at the 1992 general election with an increased majority of over 6,000.
Margaret Hodge , leader ofIslington Council from 1982 to 1992, was selected as the Labour candidate and was the clear favourite to hold the seat at theby-election .The Conservative Party had taken second place in 1992. John Kennedy, the candidate in 1992, went on to contest (and lose) Halesowen and Rowley Regis in the 1997 general election, but was not selected to fight the 1994 by-election, the Conservative nomination going instead to
Theresa May . She had been a councillor in theLondon Borough of Merton from 1986 to 1994, and had stood (and lost) in the safe Labour seat of North West Durham in 1992. Having lost two of the three previous by-elections of the Parliament to theLiberal Democrats , and failing to challenge Labour in the third, the Conservatives were not hopeful of gaining ground.The Liberal Democrat candidate, Steve Churchman, had taken little more than a tenth of the votes cast in 1992, continuing a downward track since 1983. A new candidate, Gary White, was chosen for the by-election.
Three other candidates stood: Gary Needs of the
National Front ,Gerard Batten of theUK Independence Party (UKIP), and H. R. Butensky of theNatural Law Party .Results
As expected, Hodge won the seat easily, with the Labour majority almost doubling, despite a turnout below 40%. The Liberal Democrats share of the votes declined slightly, but they still managed to push the Conservatives into third place, as they had a month before in Rotherham. The other three candidates all lost their deposits.
At the 1997 UK general election, Hodge retained the seat with an increased majority. May went on to be elected as MP for Maidenhead in 1997. Two other candidates in Barking in 1994 also stood in 1997: Needs contested Devon East for the National Democrats, and Batten contested Harlow for UKIP: both again secured only a few hundred votes. Batten was elected as a UKIP
Member of the European Parliament forLondon in 2004.Election box candidate with party link
party = Labour Party (UK)
candidate =Margaret Hodge
votes = 13,704
percentage = 72.1
change = +20.5Election box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Democrats (UK)
candidate = Gary White
votes = 2,290
percentage = 12.0
change = -2.5Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate =Theresa May
votes = 1,976
percentage = 10.4
change = -23.5Election box candidate with party link
party = National Front (UK)
candidate = Gary Needs
votes = 551
percentage = 2.9
change = "N/A"Election box candidate with party link
party = United Kingdom Independence Party
candidate =Gerard Batten
votes = 406
percentage = 2.1
change = "N/A"Election box candidate with party link
party = Natural Law Party
candidate = H. R. Butensky
votes = 90
percentage = 0.5
change = "N/A"Election box majority
votes = 11,414
percentage = 42.4
change = +20.5Election box turnout
votes = 49,635
percentage = 38.3
change = -31.7Election box hold with party link
winner = Labour Party (UK)
swing = +11.5Election box candidate with party link
party = Labour Party (UK)
candidate =Jo Richardson
votes = 18,224
percentage = 51.6
change = +7.3Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = John G. Kennedy
votes = 11,956
percentage = 33.9
change = -0.6Election box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Democrats (UK)
candidate = Steve W. Churchman
votes = 5,133
percentage = 14.5
change = -6.7Election box majority
votes = 6,268
percentage = 17.7
change = +7.9Election box turnout
votes = 50,480
percentage = 70.0
change = +3.1Election box hold with party link
winner = Labour Party (UK)
swing = 4.0See also
*
Barking (UK Parliament constituency)
*Barking
*List of United Kingdom by-elections
*By-election References
* [http://www.election.demon.co.uk/1983LB.html United Kingdom Election Results - London Borough, 1983-97]
* [http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/e97/byelec.htm UK by-election results since the 1992 general election]
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