Labour defies exit poll in Teesside general election fightback

Labour fought back in the so-called Red Wall of Northern seats during a night of huge electoral success.

As the party romped home to a landslide win across the country, it won back four Teesside seats which it had lost since 2017. In the end, the Conservatives finished with just one North East MP as deputy party chairman Matt Vickers won in the newly formed Stockton West.

Another senior Tory endured an extremely narrow defeat, becoming one of several high profile defeats across the party. Sir Simon Clarke, a former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, lost his Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland to Labour’s Luke Myer by just 214 votes.

In Hartlepool, the 10pm exit poll pointed towards a likely Reform win but the reality proved different. Instead, Labour won the seat with a margin greater than 8,000.

Anna Turley, one of the 2019 casualties, won back the Redcar seat. Interestingly, she won just a few hundred votes more than at the last General Election as the Conservative vote dropped by 6,000.

The other Labour gain in the region was Darlington, where Lola McEvoy defeated 2019 intake Peter Gibson.

Meanwhile, in Middlesbrough and Thornaby East - formerly Middlesbrough - Andy McDonald retained the MP role he has held since 2012. Stockton North was another comfortable win for the party as Chris McDonald won an 8,000 majority and Reform pushed the Conservatives into third place.

Across the country, Labour won a historic landslide that saw a generational change in The Houses of Parliament. Keir Starmer will now become the Prime Minister.

Labour turned around its disastrous 2019 results to win back hundreds of lost seats - though it was not without losing defeats, such as Blackburn and Islington North, to independent candidates. However, it was also a good night for The Liberal Democrats, The Green Party and Reform UK, who all made gains. 

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