Hackney North & Stoke Newington 2019 General Election Results

It is fair to say that an Election campaign, even for a seat with the limited scope of winning as Hackney North and Stoke Newington, requires resilience, dedication and enthusiasm. Five weeks of hard campaigning, drawing on the resources of the Association, both financially and physically, friends relatives and committed volunteers who believed in the message we had, saw us reach the culmination on the poll of 12th December.

Having spent the previous evening at the Prime Minister's Eve of Poll Rally at the Copper Box Arena, and subsequently spent much of the following day as an Association supporting the target marginal of Chingford and Woodford Green in order to aid Iain Duncan Smith, arriving at the Britannia Leisure Centre for the Hackney North and South count was a hugely exciting and energising experience. It was the crescendo of the efforts put in by so many people, and it very much carried that feel as we arrived at the venue.

The low level maelstrom of the count, tens of thousands of polling cards being thumbed and filed into place proved to be a fine demonstration of the logistics required up and don the country in order to turn crosses in boxes into MP's on green benches. It was a privilege to e able to watch the process, to see how many votes had been cast against my name on the ballot paper. The process was long and would take time, along the way there was the round of media to conduct with interviews from Sky News Digital, Hackney Citizen and East London Lines (some of which can now be seen on Twitter).

At around 4am the call came forward to candidates to assemble as the Returning Officer was to declare the result. There were concerns around how well both the Liberal Democrats and Green Party had fared and as such it added some intrigue to an otherwise fairly predictable result. We were keen to retain 2nd place, despite being the party of Brexit in an 82% Remain constituency.

1. Labour

   Diane Abbott

   • Votes: 39,972
   • Vote share %: 70.3
   • Vote share change: -4.8

2. Conservative

   Benjamin Obese-Jecty

   • Votes: 6,784
   • Vote share %: 11.9
   • Vote share change: -0.7

3. Green

   Alex Armitage

   • Votes: 4,989
   • Vote share %: 8.8
   • Vote share change: +4.1

4. Liberal Democrat

   Ben Mathis

   • Votes: 4,283
   • Vote share %: 7.5
   • Vote share change: +0.8

5. The Brexit Party

   Richard Ings

   • Votes: 609
   • Vote share %: 1.1
   • Vote share change: +1.1

6. Renew

   Haseeb Ur-Rehman

   • Votes: 151
   • Vote share %: 0.3
   • Vote share change: +0.3

7. Independent

   Lore Lixenberg

   • Votes: 76
   • Vote share %: 0.1
   • Vote share change: +0.1

A solid 2nd place in the constituency. Though this was a 0.7% drop on the 2017 result, it was nowhere near as significant as the 5% drop for Labour, perhaps a small reflection of the wider national narrative. With turnout down by 5% on the previous election too, it very much felt as though despite losing a few hundred votes to the Liberal Democrats, as was expected given the circumstances, 2nd was a result we could be rightly proud of.

This gives the Association something to build upon going forward, and a real launchpad should Diane Abbott not contest the seat at the next election. Overall an incredible experience, a privilege and one I would be keen to repeat at the next opportunity.