Copeland was a

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

created in 1983 and represented in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...

. The constituency was represented in Parliament by Trudy Harrison, of the Conservative Party, from a by-election in February 2017 until its abolition for the 2024 general election. The seat had been held by Labour candidates at elections between

1983 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 of the ...

and

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

inclusive. Copeland was one of five Cumbria seats won (held or gained) by a Conservative candidate in 2019 out of a total of six covering the county. The bulk of the seat was in the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

, together with a large proportion of its population. Further to the completion of the

2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies The 2023 review of Westminster constituencies was the most recent cycle of the process to redraw the Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituency map for the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The new constituency b ...

, the seat was abolished, with the majority being included in a new constituency which also includes the town of

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. The town is at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast, south-west of Carlisle and north-east of Whitehaven. At the 2021 census the ...

, and is named Whitehaven and Workington – first contested at the 2024 general election. Keswick was included in the new constituency of Penrith and Solway, and Millom was transferred to Barrow and Furness.

History

Copeland was created for the 1983 general election as the sole forerunner to the constituency of Whitehaven, renamed for the Borough of Copeland which had been created by the 1974 local government reorganisation. In 1983 the seat was won for Labour by Jack Cunningham, who had previously been the member for Whitehaven. It consistently returned Labour Party candidates until the by-election of 23 February 2017, when Trudy Harrison 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 James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The first two of his governments belonged to the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, where he led ...

), 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

1983–2010

Following the renaming of the Whitehaven constituency as Copeland, its boundaries remained unchanged, being coterminous with the local government district of Copeland.

2010-2024

Parliament accepted the Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies 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 extended the constituency beyond the district of Copeland. They included the town of Keswick, which had a larger electorate than the other three new and sparsely populated wards, despite their extensive area. The new wards were in the

, 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

External links

Copeland UK Parliament constituency
(boundaries April 1997 – April 2010) at ''MapIt UK''

(boundaries April 2010 – May 2024) at ''MapIt UK'' {{Coord, 54.431, -3.389, display=title, region:GB_scale:100000 Parliamentary constituencies in Cumbria (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 2024 Borough of Copeland