Copeland is a constituency in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

created in 1983 and represented in the

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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 suprema ...

. The constituency is represented in Parliament by

Trudy Harrison Trudy Lynne Harrison (born 19 April 1976) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Copeland since the February 2017 by-election. It was the first time Copeland had elected a Conservative MP sin ...

, of 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 ...

, since a by-election in February 2017. It was retained at the snap 2017 general election four months later. The seat had been held by

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 ...

candidates at elections between

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 TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

and 2015 included. Copeland is one of five Cumbria seats won (held or gained) by a Conservative candidate in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

out of a total of six covering the county. The bulk of this seat is in the Lake District, together with a large proportion of its population.

History

The sole forerunner to the constituency was the abolished constituency of

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It i ...

. Copeland consistently returned Labour Party candidates since its creation in 1983 until the by-election of 23 February 2017, when

gained it for the Conservatives. Prior to that (save for the landslide in 1931 when part of the parliamentary Labour Party remained in government with the Conservative Party under Ramsay MacDonald), the last Conservative elected for the area was in 1924. The 2015 result gave the seat the 31st most marginal majority of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.

Boundaries

Following the renaming of Whitehaven as Copeland,

Jack Cunningham John Anderson Cunningham, Baron Cunningham of Felling, PC, DL (born 4 August 1939) is a British politician who was a Labour Member of Parliament for over 30 years, serving for Whitehaven from 1970 to 1983 and then Copeland until the 2005 ...

, who had previously been the member for Whitehaven, stood for and won the seat. Its boundaries remained unchanged, being coterminous with the local government district of Copeland.

Boundary change

Parliament accepted the

Boundary Commission A boundary commission is a legal entity that determines borders of nations, states, constituencies. Notable boundary commissions have included: * Afghan Boundary Commission, an Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission, of 1885 and 1893, delineated the no ...

Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies The Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies was undertaken between 2000 and 2007 by the four boundary commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for the UK Parliament. The changes for England, Wales and Northern Ir ...

by making changes to this constituency for the 2010 general election, namely the addition of the wards Crummock, Dalton, Derwent Valley and Keswick in the Allerdale District. The four new wards thus extend the constituency beyond the district of Copeland. They include the town of Keswick, which has a larger electorate than the other three new and sparsely populated wards, despite their extensive area. The new wards are in the Lake District, like much of Copeland district. The inclusion of Keswick in the constituency was the main topic in public consultations regarding the changes.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copeland (Uk Parliament Constituency) Politics of Cumbria Parliamentary constituencies in North West England Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983 Borough of Copeland