Bradford West 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, ...

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

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

by Naz Shah of the Labour Party.

Constituency profile

Bradford West covers the city centre, Manningham, Allerton and Clayton. It has a significant Pakistani population and a majority of Muslim voters.

History

Before 1974, the

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 ...

and

Conservative Parties 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 Pa ...

held the seat marginally in various years, since which time the Labour Party always won the seat, with the exception of the 2012 Bradford West by-election. In 1981, however, Edward Lyons, the sitting Bradford West MP, joined the newly established

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

, consequently losing the seat at the 1983 general election. In 1997, the seat was one of only two Labour seats in the country, the other being

Bethnal Green and Bow Bethnal Green and Bow is a constituency in Greater London, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party. Boundaries Since the 2014 boundary changes, the constituency has contained the ...

in London, to have seen a swing towards the Conservatives away from Labour. This was because the local party association had selected a

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

Marsha Singh Marsha Singh (11 October 1954 – 17 July 2012) was a British Labour Party politician, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West from 1997 to 2012. Singh stood down due to ill health. Singh had a degree in Languages, Politics and Eco ...

to stand when the majority of the seat's population is

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

George Galloway George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, broadcaster, and writer who is currently leader of the Workers Party of Britain, serving since 2019. Between 1987 and 2010, and then between 2012 and 2015, Galloway was a Member o ...

of the

Respect Party The Respect Party was a left-wing to far-left, socialist political party active in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2016. At the height of its success in 2007, the party had one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons and nineteen ...

won the seat in the 2012 Bradford West by-election with 55.9% of the votes cast; his 30.9% majority was at the time the largest majority in the history of the modern constituency, but he lost the seat in

to the new Labour candidate Naz Shah by a substantial (28.3%) margin. Despite Galloway's threats to contest the result, he neither launched a legal challenge nor stood again in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

, in which Shah surpassed his record by winning a majority of 48.1%, the largest margin for a Bradford West MP in any incarnation of the seat. Despite Galloway not standing, his former Respect colleague

Salma Yaqoob Salma Yaqoob (formally Jacob) (born 15 August 1971) is a British political activist and psychotherapist who served as the Leader of the Respect Party from 2005 until 2012, representing the party on Birmingham City Council. She led the Birming ...

did stand as an Independent, garnering 6,345 votes (13.9%), not far behind the second-placed Conservative candidate. At the 2019 general election Shah increased her vote share by 11.5%. This was easily the highest increase in the Labour Party's vote share in any constituency in the United Kingdom, in an election where Labour's vote share decreased in all but 13 constituencies. This means that Bradford West has bucked the national trend twice, as it also did in 1997. Bradford West, since 2019, can be considered one of the safest seat in West Yorkshire for Labour.

Boundaries

1885–1918: The Municipal Borough of Bradford wards of Allerton, Bolton, Great Horton, Heaton, and Manningham. 1955–1974: The County Borough of Bradford wards of Allerton, Great Horton, Heaton, Manningham, and Thornton. 1974–1983: The County Borough of Bradford wards of Allerton, Heaton, Little Horton, Manningham, Thornton, and University. 1983–2010: The City of Bradford wards of Clayton, Heaton, Little Horton, Thornton, Toller, and University. 2010–present: The City of Bradford wards of

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, Clayton and Fairweather Green, Heaton, Manningham,

Thornton and Allerton Thornton and Allerton (population 18,000 - 2021 ward profile) is a ward within the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council in the county of West Yorkshire, England, named after the villages of Thornton and Allerton around which it is dr ...

, and

Toller Toller is a ward within the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council of West Yorkshire, England. The population of the ward as of the 2011 Census was 19,914. Demographics The area is ethnically diverse, with a significant Pakistani po ...

Members of Parliament

The constituency was originally created in 1885, but was abolished in 1918. For the 1955 general election the constituency was recreated, following a boundary review.The Bradford West Constituency was created in 1955 after a boundary review. In previous elections the city was divided into four constituencies: Bradford Central, Bradford East,

Bradford North Bradford North was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Until it was abolished for the 2010 general election, it elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post sy ...

and Bradford South.

Elections

Election results

Elections since 1918

Elections 1885–1918

Notes

References

External links

nomis Constituency Profile for Bradford West
— presenting data from the ONS annual population survey and other official statistics. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bradford West (Uk Parliament Constituency) Parliamentary constituencies in Yorkshire and the Humber Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1885 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1918 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1955 Politics of Bradford