Sir George Howarth sealed a tenth successive victory in Labour’s Knowsley stronghold, but his inevitable victory was a bittersweet moment on a bleak night for his party.
The atmosphere at the Knowsley Leisure and Culture Park was subdued on Thursday night as the ballots for Sir George were piled high beneath a screen where the news continued to forecast Labour’s worst result since 1935.
Although Labour activists had greeted the exit poll’s projections with comments that they would “wait and see”, by the time Sir George’s victory was announced they seemed resigned to national defeat.
In his victory speech, the veteran MP acknowledged it had been a bad night for Labour and said the party needed to “reflect” on the reasons for its defeat.
He said: “Obviously this is not a good night for the Labour Party. Although we’re delighted with the result here, the results elsewhere in the country are not so heartwarming. In fact, they’re very disappointing.
“I think it’s going to be a time over the next few weeks when we reflect long and hard about how we’ve managed to disconnect with the electorate in some parts of the country in a way that’s lost us seats that we never imagine we’d lose.
“Some of it is Brexit, but it’s not all Brexit and there’s other things we need to think about.”
The results were heard almost in silence as returning officer Mike Harden announced Sir George had secured 80.5% of the vote - five points fewer than 2017 but still almost 40,000 votes ahead of the Conservative Rushi Millns in second place.
The Conservatives, who used their campaign in what was Labour’s second-safest seat to test their digital campaigning skills, also lost ground in Knowsley as the Brexit Party picked up 6% of the vote in a seat that narrowly voted to leave the EU.
The Greens more than doubled their vote from 2017, while the Liberal Democrats hardly changed their share at all.
With a Conservative majority looking almost a certainty, Sir George concluded his victory speech with a plea to the re-elected government.
He said: “I’ve spent all my life fighting the Tory party in this part of the world. By no stretch of the imagination will I ever be reconciled to any Tory government.
“But I would like to express the hope that the Tory party in government will treat Knowsley better this time round than they ever have done in the past.
“We’ve got a big job to do, and we’ll get on with it.”
