Labour Gain East Worthing And Shoreham

Labour’s Tom Rutland has won the race to become East Worthing & Shoreham’s MP.

Loud cheers were heard throughout Worthing Leisure Centre, where the election count was held, when it was announced Mr Rutland had won with 22,120 votes, a majority of 9,519. Turnout was 66 per cent.

Conservative Tim Loughton had served as MP for the constituency since its creation in 1997. In April, he announced he would not be standing for re-election. He previously secured a 7,441 vote majority at the last general election in 2019.

Mr Rutland said in a speech following the results:

“Politics can change people’s lives and it must, so it’s time to end the chaos and dysfunction in Westminster and start to rebuild our community and our country together, with politics and politicians that serve the public.”

He said to the Local Democracy Reporting Service of his win:

“It’s an absolutely amazing result and it just shows how many people have voted for our message of change locally, and across the country.

“I think [Labour’s majority] is really exciting because we’ll be able to deliver on what we’ve promised in the campaign – there are a lot of challenges ahead but we’ll be getting straight to work on everybody’s priorities that we’ve outlined throughout the campaign.

Tom Rutland and Beccy Cooper

“Voters across the constituency have voted for Labour and for me for the very first time which I’m very humbled by and very excited to get to work to support them as their constituency MP in any way I can.”

Mr Rutland previously served as the deputy chief whip on the Labour-controlled London Borough of Lambeth council, being elected in 2022 to the Streatham Common & Vale ward.

He became Labour’s candidate for East Worthing & Shoreham while a councillor before resigning from the council in February to focus on his parliamentary campaign.

Following Mr Rutland’s win, Conservative candidate Leila Williams said:

“I’m disappointed, obviously, but my warmest congratulations to Tom. I think he’s fought an excellent campaign and was successful.

“I had 33 days to campaign, Tom had seven months’ head start on me, just about, and, let’s face it, the national mood was with the Labour party.

“I look forward to working with my party and see what we can learn from this and how we can move forward as a party, and how we can convince our supporters back again.

“Tim Loughton only stepped down in April. We ran a selection process that was relatively quick given the circumstances and we have to work with what we’ve got – I gave it my very best for 33 days and look forward to taking that learning forward into the future.”

The Labour party will go onto to form the next government after winning enough seats overnight to take majority control of the House of Commons, with Keir Starmer to be the next Prime Minister.

The full results were: Tom Rutland (Labour), 22,120; Leila Williams (Conservative), 12,601; Lionel Harman (Reform UK), 7,169; Debbie Woudman (Green Party), 3,246; David Batchelor (Liberal Democrats), 3,180; Frank Ward (Independent), 320; John Greenshields (Independent), 273; Ivana Forman (Independent), 169.