EREWASH has a new MP after Sir Keir Starmer’s General Election landslide saw 17,224 voters back the local Labour candidate Dr Adam Thompson.
Council leader James Dawson congratulated the research scientist on his victory.
Dr Thomson overturned the 10,606 majority that sitting Conservative MP Maggie Throup won at the 2019 election.
The full results for the 2024 poll on 4 July were:
James Martin Archer, Liberal Democrats: 2,426
Liam Dane Booth-Isherwood, Reform UK: 9,162
John William Kirby, Independent: 351
Brent Poland, Green Party: 2,478
Adam Thompson, Labour Party: 17,224
Maggie Throup, Conservative Party: 11,365
Dr Thompson’s majority was 5,859. The turnout was 60.39 per cent. A total of 43,181 residents voted out of 71,501 who were eligible.
The result was announced just after 2.30am. Polling stations across the borough had closed at 10pm – sparking a dash to get ballot boxes to the count at the Rutland Sports Park Tennis Centre in Ilkeston.
The first was there within six minutes. By 11pm they had all arrived as part of a Herculean effort by the borough council that saw counting continue into the early hours.
Dr Thompson told the BBC after he was declared the winner: “It’s wonderful – incredible.” He revealed his first job would be to set up an office.
The ex-secondary school teacher, who lives in Long Eaton, added: “People have been raising all sorts of issues on the doorstep.”
The new MP studied physics at Warwick University and became a research fellow at Nottingham University, where he completed his Phd in metrology – the science of measurement.
Dr Thompson said there had been a failure in recent years to grasp how the UK has “massive growth potential in science and technology”.
Speaking in the run-up to his election campaign, he said: “I look forward to being one of the MPs who will address this gap and help rebuild the country’s economy.”
The poll win for Dr Thompson comes a year after Erewash got a Labour council – and just two months after Labour’s Claire Ward was elected to the newly-created post of “super mayor” for both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.