North Southwark and Bermondsey (UK Parliament constituency)

North Southwark and Bermondsey
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of North Southwark and Bermondsey in Greater London for the 2005 general election.
County	Greater London
1997–2010
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Bermondsey and Old Southwark
Created from	Southwark & Bermondsey
European Parliament constituency	London

North Southwark and Bermondsey was a parliamentary constituency which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constituency was created for the 1997 general election.

Minor boundary changes occurred for the 2010 general election, and the constituency was renamed Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

Boundaries

The London Borough of Southwark wards of Abbey, Bricklayers, Browning, Burgess, Cathedral, Chaucer, Dockyard, Newington, Riverside, and Rotherhithe.

As the name suggests, the seat incorporated large parts of the old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey and Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, within the modern London Borough of Southwark (which is much larger than historic Southwark).

The seat was created in 1997 and was primarily the successor seat to the old Southwark & Bermondsey constituency which existed from 1983 until 1997. Before that the core of the seat was the Bermondsey constituency in which incarnation a notorious by-election took place in 1983.

For the 2010 United Kingdom general election it was replaced by a renamed but barely altered Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

History

For the detailed history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1997, see Southwark and Bermondsey.

Southwark North and Bermondsey was unusual for an Inner London constituency in that the area was represented by a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for over twenty-five years. Many commentators felt that this unusual state of affairs was entirely down to the circumstances of the 1983 Bermondsey by-election. Prior to this, the seat had a long history of representation by Labour MPs, but in the early 1980s the local Labour Party was dominated by the far left. The sitting MP Bob Mellish was directly opposed to their approach and accepted an invitation to sit on the board directing the regeneration of London Docklands.

Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party selected its secretary Peter Tatchell. A magazine article he had written about direct action was used by a Social Democrat MP to embarrass Labour Party leader Michael Foot who impetuously denounced Tatchell and stated that he would not be endorsed, but the party was forced to accept him when Mellish resigned from the House of Commons, triggering a by-election widely regarded as one of the dirtiest in history. Tatchell came in for immense local and national vilification and in a shock result the Liberal candidate Simon Hughes established that his party had the best chance of the other candidates, and monopolised the anti-Tatchell vote.

Hughes continued to win the seat, at times being the only Liberal Democrat MP in London. The Labour Party had a strong desire to re-take the seat, which was often predicted to change hands on a uniform swing occurring in elections. However Hughes repeatedly defied the national trend and held the seat. On one memorable occasion, during the results of the 1997 general election he was told on air by Jonathan Dimbleby that Labour had gained the seat, only for the result to re-elect Hughes with a good majority.

In local elections, the London Borough of Southwark was run by the Liberal Democrats until 2010, with Conservative support as the Lib Dems did not have a majority. Labour won majority control of the council in the May 2010 elections. Following Boundary Commission changes to both sides of the Thames, it altered slightly in shape, but changed its name to Bermondsey and Old Southwark. At the 2015 general election, Labour in the person of Neil Coyle finally re-gained the seat in a shock result, bringing Simon Hughes's 32-year parliamentary career to an abrupt end.

Member of Parliament

The seat's only MP was Simon Hughes, who sat for the various Bermondsey seats since a by-election in 1983 until his defeat in 2015, as a Liberal MP until 1988 and as a Liberal Democrat after that.

Election		Member	Party
	1997	Simon Hughes	Liberal Democrats
	2010	Constituency abolished: see Bermondsey and Old Southwark

Elections

Elections in the 2000s

General Election 2005: Southwark North & Bermondsey

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Simon Hughes	17,874	47.1	−9.8
	Labour	Kirsty McNeill	12,468	32.8	+2.0
	Conservative	David Branch	4,752	12.5	+4.9
	Green	Storm Poorun	1,137	3.0	+1.0
	UKIP	Linda Robson	791	2.1	+1.4
	National Front	Paul Winnett	704	1.9	+0.2
	Christian Peoples	Simisola Lawanson	233	0.6	N/A
Majority			5,406	14.2
Turnout			37,959	48.2	−1.9
	Liberal Democrat hold		Swing	−5.9

General Election 2001: North Southwark and Bermondsey

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Simon Hughes	20,991	56.9	+8.3
	Labour	Kingsley Abrams	11,359	30.8	-9.5
	Conservative	Ewan Wallace	2,800	7.6	+0.6
	Green	Ruth Jenkins	752	2.0	N/A
	National Front	Lianne Shore	612	1.7	N/A
	UKIP	Robert McWhirter	271	0.7	N/A
	Communist League	John Davies	77	0.2	N/A
Majority			9,632	26.1
Turnout			35,150	50.1
	Liberal Democrat hold		Swing

Elections in the 1990s

General Election 1997: North Southwark and Bermondsey

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Simon Hughes	19,831	48.6	N/A
	Labour	Jeremy Fraser	16,444	40.3	N/A
	Conservative	Grant Shapps	2,835	6.9	N/A
	BNP	Michael Davidson	713	1.7	N/A
	Referendum	Bill Newton	545	1.3	N/A
	Communist League	Ian Grant	175	0.4	N/A
	Liberal	James Munday	157	0.4	N/A
	National Democrats	Ingga Yngvisson	95	0.2	N/A
Majority			3,387	8.3	N/A
Turnout			40,793	60.4	N/A
	Liberal Democrat win (new seat)

See also

• Southwark local elections

External links

• Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat MP for Southwark and Bermondsey
• Labour in Southwark