Labour has retained the Greater Manchester constituency of Stretford and Urmston in a byelection called after the sitting Labour MP quit to become Andy Burnham’s mayoral deputy. Andrew Western, Labour’s candidate, won by a majority of 9,906. The Conservatives trailed in distant second, winning 15.9% of votes to Labour’s 69.6%. With temperatures in Manchester below freezing on polling day, only 25.8% of voters eligible to cast a ballot turned out. After thanking his mother for her support, Western said the result sent a “strong message” to Rishi Sunak’s government. “The people of Stretford and Urmston do not just speak for this constituency but for millions more people up and down the land who know that this government has been letting us down for the past 12 years,” he said. “The Tories have given up on governing and it is increasingly clear that the British people are giving up on them.” After taking his seat in parliament Western is expected to step down as head of Trafford council, which he has led since 2018. On the campaign trail, the 37-year-old said his three priorities would be fighting for properly funded public services, a green New Deal to tackle the climate emergency, and an end to the housing crisis. Labour’s win followed an easy victory in Chester earlier this month. Kate Green, a former shadow education secretary, resigned in November after being nominated as Greater Manchester’s deputy mayor for policing and crime. She had been an MP since 2010 and in 2019 won a 16,417 majority. Western, 37, comes from a Labour family. His mother, Denise, is a Trafford councillor and works in the NHS, and his father was a senior trade unionist and served as regional secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. Stretford and Urmston includes the Old Trafford area around Manchester United’s stadium, as well as the Trafford shopping centre. It is often described as the birthplace of the NHS after Trafford general hospital became the first NHS hospital when it was opened by the Labour health secretary Aneurin Bevan on 5 July 1948. The constituency has been Labour since its creation in 1997, when Beverley Hughes won the seat in Tony Blair’s landslide. She went on to be Blair’s children’s minister before quitting in 2010 and being made a peer by Gordon Brown. Burnham appointed Hughes as his first deputy when he won the inaugural Manchester mayoral election in 2017.
The result will be uncomfortable for Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the influential 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, and MP for the neighbouring Trafford seat of Altrincham and Sale West. In parliament since 1997, Brady has a majority of 6,139 and would be vulnerable in the next general election if recent polling is right. Western was runner-up in the seat in 2019. Labour will be hoping for another byelection win in early 2023 when voters in West Lancashire go to the polls to elect Rosie Cooper’s successor. She announced her resignation in order to take up the job as chair of Mersey Care NHS foundation trust, a few years after being targeted in a far-right plot.