Bradford West is a constituency represented in the

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of the

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since 2015 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 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 The Bradford West by-election was a by-election in the House of Commons constituency of Bradford West, which was held on Thursday 29 March 2012. The writ for the by-election was moved and accepted on 6 March 2012. It was unexpectedly won by ...

. In 1981, however, Edward Lyons, the sitting Bradford West MP, joined the newly established Social Democratic Party, 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,

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. George Galloway 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

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 2015 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 s ...

, 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 p ...

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 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