Abrahams retains Saddleworth seat for Labour

A JUBILANT Debbie Abrahams retained her seat for Labour in Oldham East and Saddleworth with almost double as many votes as her nearest competitor.

Despite a surge in support for right-wing populist party Reform UK, Abrahams topped the poll with 14,091 votes to secure a fifth successive term.

She had a majority of just 1,503 votes in the 2019 election but increased that to 6,357 with 35.2 per cent of the vote, albeit in a decreased turnout of 55.1 per cent – down from 64 per cent at the last election.

Reform UK candidate Jacob Barden did not attend the count at Queen Elizabeth Hall but came second with 7,734 votes.

The Conservatives fell to third in the poll, with their candidate Tom Fish receiving 6,838 votes.

There was rising support for the Workers Party of Britain, led by George Galloway who lost his seat in nearby Rochdale, as Shanaz Saddique took 4,647 votes to come fourth.

Sam Al-Hamdani received 3,386 votes for the Liberal Democrats, while Fesl Reza-Khan took 1,490 votes for the Green Party.

Independent candidates Paul Boots Errock and Nick Buckley had 1,362 and 517 votes respectively.

It means Labour has held the seat since it was first established in 1997, with Abrahams serving since winning a by-election in 2011.

The 63-year-old thanked her campaign team, election volunteers, her husband John and their children on the stage after the result was declared at around 4.25am on Friday (July 5).

She vowed to fulfill the promises she made to the electorate during her campaign and to deliver for those who did not vote for her too.

“What I found when I was knocking on the thousands of doors that I have knocked on over the last six weeks or so was that people really did want a change,” said the former Labour frontbencher, who served as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary from 2016 to 2018.

“They wanted to be presented with something that would give them hope – hope for a different, a better, a fairer life for themselves, for their families and I really do want to promise to everybody who voted for me.

“First of all, thank you so much for investing in me your trust and your confidence in my being able to represent you in Parliament.

“I promise to fulfill the promises that I have made to you, but for those of you who didn’t vote for me, I also just want to say I am still going to do my damndest to make sure that I am still able to deliver for you.

“I am going to rebuild the trust and integrity in politics that I think everybody wants and certainly everybody deserves. This democracy will never thrive by this divisive politics that we’ve had in the past.”