The Conservative Party have beaten Labour in the seat of Blyth Valley which has been held by the Labour party for nearly 70 years — since it was created in 1950.
The result is one of the first to be reported following the exit polls which suggested the Tories could win a landslide majority of 86 in the House of Commons with an estimated 368 seats, while Labour is estimated to be down to just 191. The potential Labour collapse is particularly serious as it takes the party below the 200-seat level considered normal for an opposition party.
The Tory candidate Ian Levy took the long-standing Labour seat with a 712 vote majority and former House of Commons Speaker, a noted anti-Brexiteer, John Bercow labelled the loss as “catastrophic.”
According to Chronicle Live, Mr Levy is a lifelong resident of the area and the win is his second attempt at becoming the MP for the area. The Northumberland Conservatives have also claimed that his ancestors have lived int he area for at least 500 years.
Blyth Valley is located in the North East in Northumberland, which, in 2016, voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit Referendum by a vote of 54.11 per cent to 45.89 percent.
The North East of England has traditionally been a stronghold for Labour for decades but has also been one of the heartlands for the Brexit vote. Blyth Valley has been safely in the hands of Labour for decades — the fact it has now fallen to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives is indicative of the broader swing in the country.
Labour’s majority down in every seat declared so far: https://t.co/pHAmhckPls pic.twitter.com/OcitkScDBi
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) December 13, 2019
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/yGandD5hmQI/