Labour has won the Blackpool South by-election from the Conservatives in yet another blow for Rishi Sunak.
The party’s candidate, Chris Webb, received 10,825 votes after Thursday’s vote – a 58.9% vote share – with the Tories trailing far behind with just 3,218.
Reform UK were hot on their heels, getting 3,101 votes, while the Liberal Democrats gained 387 votes and the Green Party won 368.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called it a “seismic” victory for his party and “the most important” amid a raft of local election results, adding: “This is the one contest where voters had the chance to send a message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives directly, and that message is an overwhelming vote for change.”
Follow live: Local elections results as they come in
The vote was triggered after ex-MP Scott Benton was caught in a lobbying sting by The Times.
Mr Benton was elected to the Blackpool South seat in 2019 with a slim majority of 3,690 – much smaller than the majorities Labour previously overturned at by-elections.
Blackpool South was one of the “Red Wall” seats – the traditional Labour areas that switched to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in 2019, having been a Labour seat since 1992.
The former Tory MP stood down from his seat, avoiding the ignominy of having to face a recall petition and being removed by his constituents.
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Speaking as polls closed, Labour frontbencher Pat McFadden said his party was looking at the Blackpool South by-election as the “only result where Rishi Sunak and the government are really on the ballot paper”.
The vote took place alongside local elections around England and Wales.
It is the seventh seat the Conservative Party has lost to the Labour Party in this parliament – although the Tories won Hartlepool off Labour 2021.
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