The Newark by-election was a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
in the
Newark constituency of the
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...
, which was held on 5 June 2014,
following the resignation of
Patrick Mercer
Patrick John Mercer (born 26 June 1956) is a British author and former politician. He was elected as a Conservative in the 2001 general election, until resigning the party's parliamentary whip in May 2013 following questions surrounding paid ad ...
.
Conservative
Robert Jenrick
Robert Edward Jenrick (born 9 January 1982) is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Immigration since October 2022. He served as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022. He served as Secretary of State for H ...
won the seat with a majority of 7,403.
Background
Mercer resigned the
Conservative Party whip on 31 May 2013 after an investigation by the BBC's ''
Panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'' programme regarding allegations of paid lobbying without registering the interest. He was paid £4,000 for asking questions in Parliament, and the ''Panorama'' team considered that he asked five parliamentary questions, but declared only £2,000 of the £4,000. As a consequence, he said at the time that he would not stand in the
2015 general election.
On 29 April, after being told that the Committee on Standards would recommend that he be suspended from the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
for six months, Mercer announced that he would resign his seat: he told journalists on College Green that he was standing down from "God's county of Nottinghamshire".
Mercer was appointed
Steward and Bailiff of the Three Chiltern Hundreds on 30 April 2014, a mechanism by which
MPs resign.
The writ was moved on 1 May 2014 for the by-election to be held on 5 June.
Candidates
The nominations closed at 4pm on Tuesday 13 May with 11 candidates being nominated.
The local
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
had already selected
Robert Jenrick
Robert Edward Jenrick (born 9 January 1982) is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Immigration since October 2022. He served as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022. He served as Secretary of State for H ...
to fight the seat. Jenrick trained as a solicitor and is a director of
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...
auction house. He is married with two children.
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
selected 27-year-old councillor Michael Payne, a former students' union president
and current deputy leader of
Gedling Borough Council
Gedling is a village in the Gedling district, in Nottinghamshire, England, four miles northeast of Nottingham city centre. The population at the 2011 census of the ward was 6,817 and 111,787 for the district. Gedling was recorded in the Domes ...
.
The
Liberal Democrats chose David Watts, leader of
Broxtowe Borough Council
Broxtowe refers to a number of geographic entities, current and historic, in Nottinghamshire, England:
* Broxtowe, Nottingham, a housing estate in Apsley ward, within the City of Nottingham
* Broxtowe (UK Parliament constituency), the constituency ...
.
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was List of UK Independence Party leaders, Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Brexit Party#Leaders, Lea ...
was immediately interviewed on the evening of 29 April and said he was "tempted" to stand, but the next morning he ruled himself out.
UKIP
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest pa ...
instead announced that outspoken former Conservative and current UKIP MEP for the East Midlands
Roger Helmer
Roger Helmer (born 25 January 1944) is a British politician and businessman. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands (European Parliament constituency), East Midlands regions of England, region from 1999 to 2017. B ...
would stand in the by-election.
The
Bus Pass Elvis Party leader and perennial election candidate, David Bishop, announced on 6 May that he would stand in the by-election after taking fourth place ahead of the
Liberal Democrats in a recent local authority by-election in Clifton North ward, Nottingham.
[Alex Britton]
"Patrick Mercer 'deliberately evaded' MPs' rules, watchdog finds"
, ''Nottingham Post'', 6 May 2014
Result
The Conservatives retained the seat with a majority of over 7,000 which was described by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
as 'a relatively comfortable victory'.
While UKIP's performance decreased the Conservative majority the BBC's Alex Forsyth said this was 'not as much as Mr Farage had hoped - or predicted'.
'', argued that 'the scale of the victory is a vindication for the Tory high command which mounted a huge effort to win the seat' and claimed that
'had halted the momentum of Ukip'.
hailed his party's victory and noted that it was the first time the Conservative's had held a seat at a by-election while in government for 25 years.
suggested that the Conservative performance was not particularly impressive.
'' that "Labour and Lib Dem voters clearly voted tactically to keep Ukip out".
The poor performance for the Liberal Democrats was described by the BBC as one of 'worst performances in a post-war English by-election' for the party or its predecessors,
and by ''The Telegraph'' as 'a disaster' for the party.