North Southwark and Bermondsey

Boundaries

The London Borough of Southwark currently includes the wards St George, Borough and Bankside, Chaucer, London Bridge and West Bermondsey, Newington, North Walworth, Faraday, Peckham, Rye Lane, Cmberwell Green, St. Giles, Dulwich Village, Dulwich Wood, Goose Green, Champion Hill and Dulwich Hill, Nunhead and Queens Road, Peckham Rye, Old Kent Road, North Bermondsey, South Bermondsey, Surrey Docks and Rotherhithe.

The seat incorporated large parts of the old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey and Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, within the modern London Borough of Southwark (which is much larger than historic Southwark).

The seat was created in 1997 and was primarily the successor seat to the old Southwark & Bermondsey constituency which existed from 1983 until 1997. Before that the core of the seat was the Bermondsey constituency in which incarnation a notorious by-election took place in 1983.

For the 2010 general election it was replaced by the Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency.

History

For the detailed history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1997, see Southwark and Bermondsey.

Southwark North and Bermondsey was unusual for an Inner London constituency in that the area was represented by a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for over twenty-five years. Many commentators felt that this unusual state of affairs was entirely down to the circumstances of the 1983 Bermondsey by-election. Prior to this, the seat had a long history of representation by Labour MPs, but in the early 1980s the local Labour Party was dominated by the far left. The sitting MP Bob Mellish was directly opposed to their approach and accepted an invitation to sit on the board directing the regeneration of London Docklands.

Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party selected its secretary Peter Tatchell. A magazine article he had written about direct action was used by a Social Democrat MP to embarrass Labour Party leader Michael Foot who impetuously denounced Tatchell and stated that he would not be endorsed, but the party was forced to accept him when Mellish resigned from the House of Commons, triggering a by-election widely regarded as one of the dirtiest in history. Tatchell came in for immense local and national vilification and in a shock result the Liberal candidate Simon Hughes established that his party had the best chance of the other candidates, and monopolised the anti-Tatchell vote.

Hughes continued to win the seat, at times being the only Liberal Democrat MP in London. The Labour Party had a strong desire to re-take the seat, which was often predicted to change hands on a uniform swing occurring in elections. However Hughes repeatedly defied the national trend and held the seat. On one memorable occasion, during the results of the 1997 general election he was told on air by Jonathan Dimbleby that Labour had gained the seat, only for the result to re-elect Hughes with a good majority.

In local elections, the London Borough of Southwark was run by the Liberal Democrats until 2010, with Conservative support as the Lib Dems did not have a majority. Labour won majority control of the council in the May 2010 elections. Following Boundary Commission changes to both sides of the Thames, it altered slightly in shape, but changed its name to Bermondsey and Old Southwark. At the 2015 general election, Labour in the person of Neil Coyle finally re-gained the seat in a shock result, bringing Simon Hughes's 32-year parliamentary career to an abrupt end.

Members of Parliament

The seat's only MP was Simon Hughes, who sat for the various Bermondsey seats since a by-election in 1983 until his defeat in 2015, as a Liberal MP until 1988 and as a Liberal Democrat after that.

Elections

Elections in the 1990s

| reg. electors = 65,598

Elections in the 2000s

| reg. electors = 73,527

| reg. electors = 77,084

References

References

1. "UK Parliament election results: Boundary set for England (9 April 1997 - 12 April 2010) - constituency areas".
2. admin. (2022-06-23). "Find your ward and area".
3. Rogers, Simon. (2010-01-22). "The new Westminster constituencies - full list and how they've changed".
4. {{Rayment-hc. s. 4. (March 2012)
5. "1992 (Implied) Election Result". Electoral Calculus.
6. "Election Data 1997". [[Electoral Calculus]].
7. "Election Data 2001". [[Electoral Calculus]].
8. "Election Data 2005". [[Electoral Calculus]].