Labour candidate Mike Kane retained Wythenshawe and Sale East once again with an outstanding majority of 10,396.
Whilst the rest of the country turned blue, the constituencies of Manchester Central stayed true to the red and Wythenshawe and Sale East was no exception.
Labour secured its stronghold as Kane streamed ahead of his opponents winning comfortably with 23,855 votes and leaving Conservative rival Peter Harrop far behind with only 13,459 votes.
In his winner’s speech, Kane pledged to campaign to rebuild Wythenshawe hospital, bring the HS2 station to South Manchester, to extend the metrolink station, and to fight for the 3,000 families who he claims are going to be worse off under his Tory government in my constituency.
“My constituents are going to be worse off under a Conservative government,” Kane said.
“But that brings me to the point that it’s been a very, very bad night for Labour,” he continued.
“There’s been a huge disconnect between our traditional values and what’s happened this evening. In the analysis of what we do we have to get back to what it is that people want, what people were saying and why people weren’t voting for us tonight.
“And I pledge that I will listen harder than ever. I pledge I will work harder than ever to return a future Labour government. A Labour party that should be representing the traditional values of the Labour Heartlands here in the North, the South and the Midlands, and yes in Scotland.”
“It’s a great, great privilege to represent your hometown seat in Parliament, as I have done for last five years and hope to do so again for next few years,” he added.
Following the disappointing exit polls for Labour earlier in the evening, Kane was already adamant that the Labour Party needed a thorough self-reflection.
“We are going to have to have a huge review of why our message didn’t break through. […] We have to review our leadership, our policies, our messaging,” he said.
“And also we are going to have to detoxify a little. We didn’t comport ourselves in certain aspects very well at all over the last couple of years and that needs to change.”
Despite a great loss in the constituency, Conservative candidate Harrop remained positive.
“I think the campaign went well. I think obviously it’s a strong Labour area and knocking that contingent down is going to take obviously a little bit more work,” he said following the declaration.
“We did predict we’d do a little bit better, so slightly disappointed. But look, the national picture’s fantastic for us, but yeah, on a personal level slightly disappointed we couldn’t knock into that majority a little bit more.
“They are steps in the right direction. And as I said at the beginning, this was all about getting that majority to something that was workable. 10,000 is potentially workable we’ve seen it tonight with places like Leigh swinging.
“But I think let’s just regroup, see what went wrong, see what went right and let’s start again.”
The loss certainly has not deterred the young conservative from fighting for the seat in the future.
He said: “Wythenshawe and Sale East is my home seat. I grew up there as a boy and I’d love to fight for it again.”
