Hertford and Stortford: Historic result as Labour’s Josh Dean beats Conservative Julie Marson
Voters in Hertford and Stortford have elected a Labour MP for the first time in the constituency’s 41-year history in a night of shock defeats for the Conservatives.
Josh Dean overturned Tory candidate Julie Marson’s 2019 majority of 19,620 as he beat her by 20,808 votes to 16,060, giving him a majority of 4,748. The swing was 20.44%.
Reform UK’s John Burmicz was third with 8,325, the Green Party’s Nick Cox fourth with 4,373 and Liberal Democrat Helen Campbell fifth with 4,167. Jane Fowler of the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom polled 139 votes and Barry Hensall of the Heritage Party 137. The turnout, at 68.4%, was above the national average.
Labour’s share of the vote was 38.6% – up from 23.4% at the last election in December 2019. Mrs Marson, who was seeking re-election for a second term, saw her vote share almost halved from 56.1% to 29.7%. Reform’s share was 15.4%, the Greens’ was up from 4.5% to 8.1% while the Lib Dems’ was down from 14.3% to 7.7%.
Joshua Robert Abraham Dean, a 24-year-old politics student, said when getting Labour’s backing earlier this year: “It’s the honour of my life to be selected as Labour’s candidate in the community where I grew up and where I call home.
“I’ve worked in our community, attended our local schools and run successful campaigns. As a local Labour councillor, I know the issues facing residents in Hertford and Stortford. They deserve better than a Government that’s left Britain in decline and an absentee Conservative MP with no connection to our community.
“It’s time for change in Hertford and Stortford with a local Labour MP who will work with the next Labour Government to deliver for residents in our community and get Britain’s future back.”
Mr Dean has honed his political skills over the past two years since he was appointed Hertford and Stortford Labour’s parliamentary spokesman, and got his first taste of public office in May last year when he was elected to Hertford Town Council. He narrowly missed out on an East Herts Council seat.
In 2021 he was Labour candidate for the Hertford St Andrews division in the Hertfordshire County Council elections, increasing the party’s vote share by 15.8 points and coming within 170 votes of winning.
Mr Dean, who volunteers with a young people’s charity, attended Richard Hale School in Hertford and is due to graduate from the University of Westminster, where he is studying politics and international relations.
The Hertford and Stortford seat was created in 1983 and had always been held by Conservatives, with Bowen Wells and then Mark Prisk both serving 18-year terms.
During that time, the closest anyone came to unseating them was in 2001 when Labour’s Simon Spellar was 5,603 votes behind Mr Prisk. In 2015 he increased his majority to 21,509. In September 2019 he announced he would not stand again.
The following month, members of the Hertford and Stortford Conservation Association selected ardent Brexiter Mrs Marson to stand. In the 2015 and 2017 General Elections, she had come third and then second in the Dagenham and Rainham seat in Essex.
In December 2019, her pro-Boris Johnson platform won her the seat. The constituency’s first female MP got 33,712 votes – 56.1% of the vote compared to Mr Prisk’s 60.3% in 2017. Her majority of 19,620 was up from Mr Prisk’s 19,035 in 2017 but down from his 21,509 in 2015.
But last year, the constituency party’s executive voted 8-7 to reject Mrs Marson’s request to be readopted as their General Election candidate. However, she survived and was reselected after triggering a ballot of all association members.
However, the former Government assistant whip and employment junior minister’s standing suffered as a result of her party’s performance nationally and her own issues on Partygate, PR expenses and a redundancy payout for the whip’s role she got back seven weeks after being sacked from it.
