29 Co-op MPs in new Parliament

TWENTY-NINE official Labour/Co-op MPs will represent the Movement in the next Parliament following the general election. The total is one fewer than the record total achieved last time,...

TWENTY-NINE official Labour/Co-op MPs will represent the Movement in the next Parliament following the general election.
The total is one fewer than the record total achieved last time, but with Labour seeing its majority slashed, the Co-op influence will be proportionately higher.
The two sitting MPs who lost their seats on a night of drama and tension were Jon Owen Jones, who lost his highly marginal Cardiff Central seat to the Liberal Democrats and Tony McWalter, who was beaten by just 499 votes by the Tories in Hemel Hempstead.
Elsewhere, there was a nail-biting finish at Stroud where David Drew survived with a majority of just 350, while new Co-op MP Sarah McCarthy-Fry took Portsmouth North with a much reduced majority of just over 1,000 following a Tory surge.
Co-op Party Chair Gareth Thomas had an anxious wait in Harrow West before being re-elected with a majority of just over 2,000, while Corby MP Phil Hope saw his reduced to 1,517.
All remaining sitting Co-op MPs were elected and, of the new candidates, Ed Balls (Normanton) and Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch) had majorities of over 10,000, while Linda Riordan (Halifax) survived a swing to the Tories to take a majority of 3,417.
Rachel Blackmore, the Labour/Co-op candidate in the safe Conservative seat of Stratford-upon-Avon, reversed the national trend to marginally increase the party&#039s share of the vote and polled just over 10,000 votes.
Meanwhile it has been confirmed that three former Labour/Co-op MPs who stepped down before the election ? Dennis Turner, George Foulkes and Lewis Moonie ? have accepted life peerages and will now sit in the House of Lords.
Co-op Party National Secretary Peter Hunt told the News: "We are pleased to return so many MPs to the House of Commons. With three very experienced MPs moving to the Lords, the Co-op Parliamentary Group is as large as it&#039s ever been.
"Talk of a Tory revival is misleading, but Labour voters flirting with the Lib Dems have delivered Tory victories in seats such as Hemel Hempstead."

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