ELECTION: Labour wins Montgomeryshire seat
Mr Witherden, a secondary school teacher, has ended the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats domination of the seat by polling 12,709 votes for the newly expanded Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr constituency.
On a disastrous night nationally for the Conservatives, their former MP, Craig Williams, who was dropped by the party last month following betting allegations, picked up 7,775 votes to finish in third behind Reform UK's Oliver Lewis with 8,894 votes.
The Liberal Democrats came in fourth, while Plaid Cymru's Elwyn Vaughan and The Green Party's Jeremy Brignell-Thorpe were fifth and sixth respectively.
Speaking at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells, where the votes were counted, Mr Witherden praised his team for uniting the two areas into one campaign and added: “The phrase historical result is over used, but this really is a historical result. Montgomeryshire is the only seat in Wales that had never had a Labour MP, so history has been made here tonight."
The turn-out was 58.69% from the 74,039 eligible voters, meaning that a whopping 30,582 people didn’t vote.
At the last election in 2019, Mr Williams won with 20,020 votes for the Conservatives, well clear of the Liberal Democrats in second on 7,882. The Labour victory marked a tremendous turnaround for the party who secured just 5,585 votes five years ago.
The Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr result
Steve Witherden (Labour): 12,709 votes
Oliver Lewis (Reform UK): 8,894
Craig Williams (Independent): 7,775
Glyn Preston (Liberal Democrats): 6,470
Elwyn Vaughan (Plaid Cymru): 5,667
Jeremy Brignell-Thorp (Green Party): 1,744
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|