In a clear reflection of the national Labour landslide, all of Bolton’s three seats – Bolton North East, Bolton West, and Bolton South & Walkden – were won by the party at the general election.
Normally, little attention is given at general elections to party performance beyond the Conservatives and Labour.
But this year has changed that, with the two biggest parties combined only winning 58 per cent of the national vote share. This is the lowest combined national vote share Labour and the Tories have achieved since 1922.
This underlying facet of the national picture – a surge in support for parties beyond Labour and the Tories – is very clear from Bolton’s results.
The town’s three constituencies have seen a surge of support for the Nigel Farage-led Reform, and the emergence of George Galloway’s Workers Party has touched Bolton South and Walkden.
Speaking to Dylan Evans, the Reform candidate for Bolton West, as counting continued on Thursday night, he had a clear-set confidence in the party’s ability to split the Tory vote: “Since Nigel came back on board our support has been through the roof. We want to become the opposition in Bolton.”
The election count was held at Bolton Arena (Image: Phil Taylor)
Midway through our conversation, load groans resound from a crowd of Labour supporters stood in front of a large television in the counting station: Lee Anderson, the Reform MP who defected to the party from the Tories earlier this year, has just won his seat in Ashfield.
Mr Evans smiles before adding: “People want change: they want a party to vote for instead of just against.”
In Bolton West, Reform came in third place with 19 per cent of the vote. While not emerging as the obvious “challenger” to Labour in the seat, as Mr Evans had hoped, the party nonetheless picked up over 8,500 votes.
In Bolton North East Reform also came third, but here only 85 votes behind the Tories. In Bolton South and Walkden, however, Reform managed to climb into second place. Around 63 per cent of this constituency voted for Brexit in 2016 – the highest among Bolton’s three constituencies – reflecting a slew of Northern ‘Red Wall’ seats with high Brexit support where Reform outperformed the Tories at this election.
Julie Pattison, who stood for Reform in this seat, described herself as “more than pleased” with the result after it was announced.
When asked about the biggest issues for Reform on the doorstep, Ms Pattison mentioned the cost-of-living crisis, NHS staff shortages, and housing. Both Ms Pattison and Mr Evans neglected to mention immigration, which is nonetheless a major campaign issue for the party and features high among Reform’s pledges in much of its local campaign material.
Coming in third place in the Bolton South and Walkden constituency was the Workers Party, led nationally by George Galloway who lost his seat in Rochdale.
Speaking to Jack Khan, the party’s candidate for the seat, there was a heavy emphasis on the “working-class” vote and an outright rejection of the suggestion that votes for the Workers Party were a protest against Labour.
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Sitting Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi held this seat but saw her vote share fall by about 16 per cent.
This came in spite of her having broken the Labour whip and resigning from the shadow front bench last October to vote in favour of the SNP’s parliamentary motion for a Gaza ceasefire.
Ms Qureshi recognised the importance of her having done so for voters in the constituency: “I know that having stepped down as a shadow minister and speaking about Palestine has helped tremendously. There’s a lot of people unhappy about it, and not just from within the Muslim community.”
Bolton has turned entirely red for the first time since the 2010 general election, and Labour activists were rightfully jubilant as the town’s results were announced in the early morning.
But the night’s results contained strong undercurrents favouring smaller parties, denting Labour’s vote share in two of Bolton’s seats despite the party’s victories.
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