Labout veteran Ronnie Campbell was last night recovering in hospital after heart surgery.
The 72-year-old former Blyth Valley MP did not run at the last election due to his health.
He had been treated for stomach cancer in 2016, but was told last year he required heart surgery due to narrowing of the coronary arteries.
Labour Party chairman Ian Lavery urged people to wish Ronnie, who was Blyth’s MP for 32 years, “the very best” after the operation at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.
The Tories won the seat for the first time in 94 years last month.
Outspoken Ronnie Campbell stood down at the general election.
An MP since 1987, he said “after serious consideration and a long time in politics I feel it is time to step aside".
"I feel that it’s time, at my age, that I was put out to grass," he added.
The veteran MP became a miner at the age of 15 and spent 29 years down the pits, where he was elected as a union representative in 1967 when working on the coalface at Bates Colliery.
Despite loyally sticking up for Jeremy Corbyn, he's also been one of Labour’s most prominent pro-Brexit campaigners, even if it meant defying the Labour leadership.
Mr Campbell survived serious cancer operations in the run-up to the last general election.
