Barnsley Central is a

constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger State (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

represented in 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. ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremac ...

since 2011 by

Dan Jarvis Daniel Owen Woolgar Jarvis (born 30 November 1972) is a British Labour Party politician and former British Army officer who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley Central since 2011. He also served as the Mayor of South Yo ...

of the Labour Party.

Constituency profile

Barnsley Central is generally an urban seat and has a large majority of its population on middle or low incomes, with most of the large former mining town's

social housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

contained within it. It has been held by the Labour Party since 1983 and was consistently a

safe seat A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combinat ...

, like its main predecessor, until 2019, when Labour's majority was cut to 9.7%.

History

Created in 1983, Barnsley Central covers a similar area to that of the former Barnsley constituency. The seat was held by almost a year from May 2010 by

Eric Illsley Eric Evlyn Illsley (born 9 April 1955) is a former British Labour politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley Central from 1987 until 2011. He was a Labour Party representative until suspended from the party after being char ...

as an independent MP after he was suspended from the Labour party over the expenses row and he led to its becoming vacant on 8 February 2011. On 12 January 2011 having admitted the crime of fraud over his expenses, Illsley announced the intention to stand down from Parliament, necessitating a by-election in early 2011. On 8 February 2011 Ilsley resigned his seat before he was due to be sentenced for fraudulently claiming parliamentary expenses. The by-election was held on 3 March 2011 and was won by

for the Labour Party. The Labour majority and share of the vote rose to give an

absolute majority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority ru ...

, on a turnout 20% lower than in the General Election; meanwhile the Conservative share of the vote fell steeply to just 8.3%, less than UKIP's 12.2% vote-share. In the 2019 general election, Jarvis held onto his seat, but with a sharply reduced majority; it fell from 15,546 to 3,571. The

Brexit Party Reform UK is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was bri ...

came second with 11,233 votes, which was 30.4% of the vote, compared to Jarvis's 40.1%.

Boundaries

1983–1997: The Borough of Barnsley wards of Ardsley, Athersley, Central, Monk Bretton, North West, Royston, and South West. 1997–2010: The Borough of Barnsley wards of Ardsley, Athersley, Central, Cudworth, Monk Bretton, North West, Royston, and South West. 2010–present: The Borough of Barnsley wards of Central, Darton East, Darton West, Kingstone, Monk Bretton, Old Town, Royston, and St Helens. Barnsley Central constituency covers most of the town of

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

. It is bordered by the constituencies of

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

Hemsworth Hemsworth is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically within the West Riding of Yorkshire and had a population of 13,311 at the 2001 census, ...

, Barnsley East, and

Penistone and Stocksbridge Penistone and Stocksbridge is a constituency in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament represented since 2019 by Miriam Cates, a Conservative. As with all constituencies, adults qualifying to vote in the seat (its electorate) elect one Memb ...

Members of Parliament

The constituency has had three

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

since its creation in 1983, all of whom have been from the Labour Party.

Elections

Elections of the 2010s

This was the highest Brexit Party vote share at the 2019 general election. It was also the highest vote share for any non Labour candidate in the seat's history.

Elections of the 2000s

Elections of the 1990s

Elections of the 1980s

Notes

References

Sources

Guardian Unlimited Politics
(Election results from 1992 to the present) {{DEFAULTSORT:Barnsley Central (Uk Parliament Constituency) Parliamentary constituencies in Yorkshire and the Humber Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983 Politics of Barnsley