John Prescott has been chosen as the Reform UK candidate to contest the upcoming Hartlepool by-election.
The self-employed businessman, not the former Labour Deputy Prime Minister, will stand in the County Durham constituency to replace Labour MP Mike Hill.
The contest was triggered after Hill quit as an MP and will take place alongside a series of local elections in England and votes for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
Prescott is standing for the Reform UK party which used to be Nigel Farage's Brexit Party.
The party renamed itself after the UK left the European Union last year.
Sir Keir Starmer is campaigning in Hartlepool today ahead of the by-election battle which will be a key test of his Labour leadership.
The May 6 contest will give an indication of whether the Labour leader can shore up support in the party's former industrial heartlands after large sections of the so-called "red wall" crumbled in the 2019 general election.
Ahead of the visit Sir Keir highlighted a series of local issues and the work candidate Paul Williams has done as a frontline doctor during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hartlepool is a seat long held by Labour and the party fought off a strong Conservative and Brexit Party challenge at the 2019 general election, although their majority was reduced to just under 3,600, down from 7,650 in 2017.
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