Hove is a borough constituency in

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

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 ...

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 ...

Peter Kyle Peter Kyle (born 9 September 1970) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove since 2015. A former charity sector ...

. It has the joint shortest name of any constituency in the current Parliament, with 4 letters, the same as Bath.

Boundaries

1950–1983: The County Borough of Hove, and the Urban District of Portslade-by-Sea. 1983–2010: The Borough of Hove. 2010–present: The City of Brighton and Hove wards of Brunswick and Adelaide, Central Hove, Goldsmid, Hangleton and Knoll, Hove Park, North Portslade, South Portslade, Westbourne, and Wish. The constituency covers

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

and

Portslade Portslade is a western suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Portslade Village, the original settlement a mile inland to the north, was built up in the 16th century. The arrival of the railway from Brighton in 1840 encouraged rapid de ...

in the city of

Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...

Constituency profile

The settlement of

is an economically active seaside resort which is both a

commuter town A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

and centred in an area of high local employment, stretching from

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

to London Gatwick Airport. The seat acted as a barometer of the national result between 1979 and 2015.

History

It was not until the 1950 general election, when major boundary changes occurred in Brighton, that Hove acquired a parliamentary seat of its own, having previously been in the former two-seat Brighton constituency. Hove was a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

stronghold A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

until the 1997 general election, when the Labour Party saw a landslide parliamentary victory and with it, as in

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

, wide success on the developed

coast. Labour retained the seat, though with narrow majorities, at the 2001 and 2005 general elections. The Liberal Democrats including their two predecessor parties amassed their largest share of the vote in 2010 at 22.6% of the vote.

Mike Weatherley Michael Richard Weatherley (2 July 1957 – 20 May 2021) was a British Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove in East Sussex from 2010 to 2015. Early life Weatherley was born in Clevedon, Somerset, o ...

, a

, regained the seat at the 2010 general election. Weatherley stood down after one term, and the 2015 election saw

regain the seat for Labour on a 3.1% swing. The 2015 result gave the seat the 14th-smallest majority of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority. Kyle was reelected in 2017 by a margin of 32.6%, a 15.1% swing to Labour; this was not only the biggest margin Labour had ever won Hove by, but the largest margin any MP for Hove had won since

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 ...

. The Conservative Party polled its lowest number of votes since 2005 and recorded their lowest percentage of the vote (31.6%) in the constituency since its creation. Turnout at the 2017 general election was 77.6%, the highest turnout in the constituency at a General Election since its creation in 1950.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

’s 21.8% vote share increase was the 5th largest for any Labour Party candidate at the 2017 election.

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Elections in the 1970s

Elections in the 1960s

Elections in the 1950s

Notes

References

Sources

Election result, 2005
(BBC)
Election results, 1997 – 2001
(BBC)

(Election Demon)

(Election Demon)

(Guardian)

(Keele University) *

F. W. S. Craig Frederick Walter Scott Craig (10 December 1929 – 23 March 1989) was a Scottish psephologist and compiler of the standard reference books covering United Kingdom Parliamentary election results. He originally worked in public relations, compilin ...

. ''British Parliamentary Election Results 1950–1973''. () {{DEFAULTSORT:Hove (Uk Parliament Constituency) Hove Parliamentary constituencies in South East England Politics of Brighton and Hove Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1950