Labour's Hartlepool citadel finally toppled by election 'aftershock'

Going, going, gone. Shortly after 7am today, for the first time since its inception as a constituency in 1974, Labour lost control of Hartlepool.

Fittingly, the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate on the ballot paper for the local by-election was named “The Incredible Flying Brick”. Because here at the count in Hartlepool’s Mill House Leisure Centre, lay the rubble of Labour’s Red Wall.

The honour of being the first Conservative MP for the north-east seaside town goes to North Yorkshire cattle farmer and district councillor Jill Mortimer, who beat the Labour candidate Dr Paul Williams by 15,529 votes to 8,589.

As the first Conservative MP elected in Hartlepool for 57 years and the first women ever to hold the post, she described it as “a truly historic result and a momentous day”.

She added: “Labour have taken people in Hartlepool for granted for too long and I heard this time and time again on the doorstep. People have had enough. And now through this result the people have spoken and they made it clear it is time for change.

Following the count, meanwhile, Dr Williams made a quick exit out of a side-door and refused any questions from journalists before speeding off in a car of Labour red.

A grim-faced Labour contingent had conceded defeat to journalists several hours before the vote was announced.

If the 2019 general election was a so-called “political earthquake”, then according to Jim McMahon, the Labour shadow cabinet member for transport who has decamped to Hartlepool for the past six weeks to lead the campaign, this morning’s result was the "aftershock".

While Labour held Hartlepool in the 2019 election, as so many other areas in its former heartlands fell to the Tories, its support here dropped by 15 per cent. In that election the Brexit Party gained 10,600 votes leaving Labour with a fragile majority of just 3,595 which has now been so comprehensively wiped out.

Given the widespread support for Brexit in an area where 69.9 per cent of the constituency voted Leave, the Labour candidate always seemed a curious choice.

The 48-year-old Williams voted Remain in the EU referendum and was previously Labour MP for nearby Stockton South before losing his seat to a Conservative in 2019.

It had been hoped his credentials as a local GP would sway voters in a town that has suffered swingeing cuts to its health services. Over the past decade or so Hartlepool has lost its accident and emergency department, intensive care unit and maternity ward (although some semblance of the latter is being slowly reinstated).

During the campaign Dr Williams has been forced to fend off claims that he supported the removal of critical care services in Hartlepool. He has also apologised after the discovery of an offensive tweet posted in 2011.

Back in the days when Hartlepool was a Labour citadel, it was at this same leisure centre in June 2001 where the then Labour MP Peter Mandelson stormed to a 14,500 majority shortly after being forced to resign for a second time as a Government minister and delivered his famous speech proclaiming “I am a fighter and not a quitter”.

In words which have proved prescient he added that his resounding victory meant Labour “can no longer be accused of being a Metropolitan set”. Two decades on many ex-Labour voters in Hartlepool say it is precisely this perceived metropolitan focus of the party that has turned them away.

But McMahon insists the defeat is not a wider reflection on the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer – who visited Hartlepool three times during the campaign. He insists the Labour campaigners were greeted far more warmly on the doorstep this time around than during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure.

“Compared to the hostility at times we would feel in 2019 that has gone away,” Mr McMahon said.

But still to lose Hartlepool will provoke a barrage of introspection, not least as Sir Keir has insisted that he will take “full responsibility for the result”.

Aside from Dr Williams there were two other former Labour MPs standing in the by-election: Thelma Walker, who represented Colne Valley from 2017 to 2019 and was standing for the newly-formed Northern Independence Party and Hilton Dawson, who was the Labour MP for Lancaster and Wyre between 1997 and 2005 and was standing for the North East Party on a similar platform of devolution.

“Labour has failed the north-east and taken it for granted,” Dawson said. “They have been in power in this part of the country as long as there has been a Labour party and simply haven’t fundamentally addressed the issues of these communities.”

To add insult to injury, shortly before the result was announced in the early hours of the morning a 30ft effigy of Boris Johnson, arms raised in triumph, was inflated outside the Mill House pub, which is next to the leisure centre.

The local group behind the stunt said it was in order to mark a new chapter in Hartlepool’s history. And a Prime Minister defying the laws of political gravity.