Former House of Commons Leader ousted as MP in Sherwood Forest

Michelle Welsh standing with a grouyp of Labour supportersThe new Labour MP for Sherwood Forest, Michelle Welsh, with some of her supporters at the election count
© BBC News

The former leader of the House of Commons, Sir Mark Spencer, is one of dozens of Conservative MPs to lose their seats in the General Election. Spencer gained 13,398 votes, down 2,465 on his 2019 tally; but with a much lower turnout, Labour’s Michelle Welsh received 18,841 votes – almost 3,000 more than the then-Labour candidate, Jerry Hague, achieved in the 2019 general election.

Welsh becomes one of 211 new Labour MPs elected in a landslide victory for Keir Starmer. She increased Labour’s share of the vote in the constituency by 9.2 per cent above that achieved by the 2019 Labour candidate Jerry Hague. Spencer’s share of the vote plummeted by 33.3 per cent. He obtained just 27.5 per cent of the votes cast – well down on the 60.8 per cent he achieved in 2019.

Across the county, all constituencies returned Labour MPs apart from Ashfield, where Lee Anderson became Reform UK’s first elected MP; and Newark, where the former Conservative minister Robert Jenrick held only his seat with 20,968 votes, ahead of Labour’s Saj Ahmad, on 17,396 votes.