The Labour Party have failed to retrieve their deposit following yesterday’s by-election.
The constituency of Chesham and Amersham hosted a by-election for a seat in Parliament following the death of Dame Cheryl Gillan, the former Welsh Secretary, in April. The election saw the Liberal Democrats overturn a sizeable Conservative majority in the area.
However, one of the major shocks of the night saw the Labour Party not receiving enough of the vote share to retrieve their deposit.
Each party is required to pay a five-hundred-pound deposit prior to an election in order to stand. This deposit is returned should the party get a minimum 5% of the vote share.
Natasa Pantelic, the Labour Party candidate in the election, only accumulated 622 votes overall out of the 37,954 people who voted. This amounted to only 1.6% of the vote share, which fell well below the 5% threshold required to return the deposit.
This was a tremendous drop from the 2019 General Election where, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, the party received 7,166 votes, amounting to 12.9% of the vote share.
The result is the latest in a string of poor election performances under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. Only last month, the Labour Party saw a humiliating deafeat in a Hartlepool by-election, which saw the Tories winning the constituency for the first time in its history by almost seven thousand votes.
The latest result will undoubtedly put more pressure on the Labour Party leader.
The election in Chesham and Amersham was also a shock to the Conservative Party, which let a 16,000 vote majority slip, losing to the Liberal Democrats by over 8,000 votes.
The defeat has been partially credited to the Liberal Democrat’s opposition to the HS2 train line, which is supported by the Conservative Party.
