Labour’s Rachel Reeves has held her Leeds West seat in the 2019 General Election.
Ms Reeves received 22,186 votes, a share of 55.1% – down 8.9% on the 2017 election.
Conservative Party candidate Mark Dormer won 11,622 votes, a 28.9% share, an increased vote of almost 3% on the last election.
Brexit Party’s Phillip Mars received 2,685 votes in third place.
The results are:
- Yorkshire Party – 650
- Alliance for Green Socialism – 31
- Conservatives – 11,622
- Brexit Party – 2,685
- Labour – 22,186
- Green Party – 1,274
- Lib Dems – 1,787
- SDP – 46
Following the result, Ms Reeves Tweeted:
“It’s a privilege to have been re-elected by the people of Leeds West. I will work tirelessly to repay your faith in me.
“But after tonight’s devastating results for @UKLabour we need to re-build trust in our party and learn some difficult lessons if we want to win again. “
Ms Reeves, who had more than 5,000 votes sliced off her majority, called on the Labour Party to “learn lessons” from its election defeat.
She spoke of the need for the party to re-win trust in order to regain power and make changes. She said:
“This evening was a disappointing night for the party I love. The country does not deserve the government it has elected this evening. Our country deserves better than this.
“The Labour Party needs to re-win the trust of people. Labour has not won a general election since 2005 and we with humility and respect need to learn those lessons.
“If we don’t, we are letting down the most vulnerable people in our society. We are allowing our public services to continue to go underfunded, and we are allowing a Tory hard Brexit.
“Without power we are powerless, we are powerless to defend to serve the people we got into politics to serve.
“I will make sure that next time Labour returns to power because we have learned the lessons from this election.”
The constituency of Leeds West covers the council wards of Armley, Bramley and Stanningley, Farnley and Wortley, and Kirkstall.
The seat has been held by Labour since Clement Attlee’s landslide election victory in 1945, except for four years in the mid-1980s when it was briefly held for the Liberal Party by Michael Meadowcroft.
Long-serving MP John Battle then held the seat for Labour from 1987, before retiring in 2010, for the seat to be taken over by Rachel Reeves.
Going into this election, Reeves held a healthy majority of 15,965 gained in the 2017 vote.