Blaenau Gwent 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, ...
in
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
, 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
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
by
Nick Smith of the
Labour Party.
Constituency profile
Blaenau Gwent is a
post-industrial
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to s ...
area which formerly had significant coal and steel sectors.
History
Predecessor seats
Blaenau Gwent incorporates most of the area of
Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Health ...
's old constituency and other areas as population expansion has been low or negative following the 1960s. The constituency was created in 1983, twenty-three years after Bevan's death, from the upper part of
the former Abertillery constituency, the town of
Brynmawr from
Brecon and Radnor, and
Bevan's old Ebbw Vale seat with the exception of the area of the
Rhymney
Rhymney (; cy, Rhymni ) is a town and a community in the county borough of Caerphilly, South Wales. It is within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. With the villages of Pontlottyn, Fochriw, Abertysswg, Deri and New Tredegar, Rhymney is ...
Community (formerly Rhymney Urban District). The then-Labour party leader
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
, who had won Ebbw Vale in the by-election following Bevan's death, was the seat's first MP.
Strong Labour Party majorities
Until 2005, the constituency statistically ranked in the top 20 safest
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 ...
seats in the country by size of majority and by continuous representation by candidates from that party. In the
1983
The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...
and
1992 general elections, it was Labour's safest seat.
In the
2010 general election, Labour candidate Nick Smith gained the seat with a 29.2% swing from Independent back to Labour; as one of three seats Labour gained in that election where its government fell. The 2015 result made the seat the 30th safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.
Period of independent representation
At the
2005 general election the Labour
Welsh Assembly Member Peter Law
Peter John Law (1 April 1948 – 25 April 2006) was a Welsh politician. For most of his career Law sat as a Labour councillor and subsequently Labour Co-operative Assembly member (AM) for Blaenau Gwent. Latterly he sat as an independent membe ...
ran as an independent and won the seat. He had resigned from the Labour Party in protest at the imposition of an
all-women candidates' shortlist following the retirement of incumbent MP
Llew Smith
Llewellyn Thomas Smith (16 April 1944 – 26 May 2021) was a British Labour Party politician.
Early life and education
According to Smith, his father was born in England and moved to Wales as a child. He began working at the local colliery ( Ne ...
, and overturned a 19,313 (60%) Labour majority with a significant 9,121 (25%) majority. In 2006 the Labour Party decided not to require an all-women shortlist at the next general election.
Law died of a
brain tumour on 25 April 2006, prompting
a by-election in the seat on 29 June. Labour failed to regain the seat as Law's former campaign manager,
Dai Davies, was elected to replace him, beating
Owen Smith
Owen Smith (born 2 May 1970) is a former Labour Party politician and subsequently a British lobbyist, who has been the UK government relations director for pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb since 2020. Smith was Member of Parliamen ...
, the Labour candidate who later became MP for Pontypridd.
Opposition parties
The
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 ...
and
Liberal Democrats have both been very weak in the seat. From
1987
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...
until 2017 neither had ever won 10% of the vote and the Conservatives had never achieved one eighth of the total votes cast. However, in 2015 the Conservatives achieved just under 15% of the vote, with Plaid Cymru in second place after Labour. In 2005 the Liberal Democrats received their lowest share of the vote in the United Kingdom and the Conservatives their second lowest, and both lost their deposits, though this particular election saw unusual circumstances.
The 2010 result was one of few where an Independent candidate kept their deposit, winning in excess of 5% of the votes cast, and pushed one of the main three parties into fourth place; the independent Blaenau Gwent People's Voice group fielded no candidate in 2015. Three non-Labour candidates exceeded 5% of the vote (the deposit threshold) in 2015, the foremost locally being
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 p ...
(who achieved nearly 18% of the vote), but the Lib Dem and Green candidates failed to retain their deposits.
Boundaries
The constituency boundaries are coterminous with those of
Blaenau Gwent county borough. The main towns are
Ebbw Vale
Ebbw Vale (; cy, Glynebwy) is a town at the head of the valley formed by the Ebbw Fawr tributary of the Ebbw River in Wales. It is the largest town and the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent county borough. The Ebbw Vale and Brynmawr con ...
,
Abertillery
Abertillery (; cy, Abertyleri) is a town and a community of the Ebbw Fach valley in the historic county of Monmouthshire, Wales. Following local government reorganisation it became part of the Blaenau Gwent County Borough administrative area ...
,
Brynmawr and
Tredegar
Tredegar (pronounced , ) is a town and community situated on the banks of the Sirhowy River in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent, in the southeast of Wales. Within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire, it became an early centre of the In ...
.
Members of Parliament
Elections
Elections in the 1980s
Elections in the 1990s
Elections in the 2000s
Elections in the 2010s
Of the 35 rejected ballots:
*25 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.
[
*9 voted for more than one candidate.][
*1 had writing or mark by which the voter could be identified.][
Of the 84 rejected ballots:
*44 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for.][
*30 voted for more than one candidate.][
*10 had writing or mark by which the voter could be identified.][
This was the largest decrease in the Plaid Cymru vote share at the 2019 general election.]
See also
* Blaenau Gwent (Senedd constituency)
Blaenau Gwent is a constituency of the Senedd. It elects one Member of the Senedd by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of eight constituencies in the South Wales East electoral region, which elects four ...
* List of parliamentary constituencies in Gwent
* List of parliamentary constituencies in Wales
Notes
References
External links
nomis Constituency Profile for Blaenau Gwent
presenting data from the ONS annual population survey and other official statistics.
Election results, 1997 - 2001
(BBC)
(Election Demon)
(Election Demon)
(Guardian)
(Election results from 1922 onwards)
(Election results from 1955 onwards)
2017 Election
House Of Commons Library 2017 Election report
A Vision Of Britain Through Time
(Constituency elector numbers)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blaenau Gwent (Uk Parliament Constituency)
Parliamentary constituencies in South Wales
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1918
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983
Politics of Blaenau Gwent