| Blackburn | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 1955 |
| Type: | Borough |
| Elects Howmany: | One |
| Population: | 107,246 (2011 census)[1] |
| Electorate: | 70,586 (2023)[2] |
| Region: | England |
| European: | North West England |
| Towns: | Blackburn |
| Year2: | 1832 |
| Abolished2: | 1950 |
| Type2: | Borough |
| Elects Howmany2: | Two |
Blackburn is a constituency in Lancashire, England, which is represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by independent politician Adnan Hussain. From 2015 to 2024 it was represented byKate Hollern of the Labour Party and, from 1979 to 2015, by Jack Straw who served under the Labour leaders of Neil Kinnock and John Smith and the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
1832–1885: The township of Blackburn.[3]
1885–1918: The existing parliamentary borough, and so much of the municipal borough of Blackburn as was not already included in the parliamentary borough.[4]
1918–1950: the county borough of Blackburn.[5]
1955–1974: The county borough of Blackburn wards of Park, St. John's, St. Jude's, St. Luke's, St. Matthew's, St. Michael's, St. Paul's, St. Silas's, St. Stephen's, St. Thomas's and Trinity.[6]
2010–2024: The district of Blackburn with Darwen wards of Audley, Bastwell, Beardwood and Lammack, Corporation Park, Ewood, Higher Croft, Little Harwood, Livesey with Pleasington, Meadowhead, Mill Hill, Queen's Park, Roe Lee, Shadsworth with Whitebirk, Shear Brow and Wensley Fold.
Following the 2007 review of parliamentary representation in Lancashire in the run up to the 2010 United Kingdom general election, including the unitary authority of Blackburn with Darwen, the Boundary Commission for England made minor boundary changes to the existing constituency.
Further to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which came into effect for the 2024 general election, the constituency is composed of the following wards of the Borough of Blackburn with Darwen (as they existed on 1 December 2020):
Minor changes to reflect changes to local authority ward structure.The constituency encompasses the town of Blackburn in the North West of England. It borders four other constituencies: Ribble Valley to the north, Hyndburn to the east, Rossendale and Darwen to the south and Chorley to the west.
Blackburn was first enfranchised by the Reform Act 1832, as a two-member constituency, and was first used at the 1832 general election. It was abolished for the 1950 general election, replaced by two single member constituencies, Blackburn East and Blackburn West.
Blackburn was re-established as a single-member constituency for the 1955 general election, partially replacing Blackburn East and Blackburn West. After its re-establishment, the constituency was initially a marginal, but Blackburn was later considered to be a Labour Party stronghold prior to the 2024 general election—up until that point, it had only elected Labour MPs since its recreation in 1955. In 2024 Blackburn was won by Adnan Hussain, an independent candidate who campaigned largely on the issue of the genocide of Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war. Three other previously safe Labour seats saw similar results at that election, all of which had large Muslim populations.
The constituency of Blackburn has been represented by two prominent frontbenchers in the Cabinet: Barbara Castle, a First Secretary of State (amongst other roles) who stood down from this seat to become a Member of the European Parliament, and Jack Straw, who served as Home Secretary and then Foreign Secretary in the Blair government.
Jack Straw's Conservative challenger in the 1997 general election, Geeta Sidhu-Robb, was filmed with a megaphone during the election campaign, exclaiming in Urdu or Gujarati: "Don't vote for a Jew, Jack Straw is a Jew. If you vote for him, you're voting for a Jew. Jews are the enemies of Muslims." Sidhu-Robb said that this was in response to racist campaigning by the Labour Party, who she accused of claiming that she was "against Islam". She felt that Labour were "making it personal", and she took particular umbrage as her husband was Muslim. Sidhu-Robb later said she wished she had not made those comments about Straw, saying she did so because she was "furious" and that she "didn't want racism and bigotry to play a part in anything that [she] had anything to do with."[8] Nonetheless, her comments regarding Straw's religion resurfaced over 20 years later, when Sidhu-Robb was competing to be nominated as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the 2021 London Mayoral election, causing the Liberal Democrats to remove her from consideration for their candidacy.
Blackburn's then MP, Straw, was primarily challenged in the 2005 general election by the Conservative Party, but the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, also stood for election in the seat as an Independent. Murray said: "I've been approached by several people in the Asian community who are under huge pressure from Labour activists [talking up the [[British National Party|BNP]]'s chances] to apply for a postal vote rather than a ballot vote and then hand their postal vote over to the Labour party." Over 50% more people used postal votes in the 2005 general election in Blackburn than in 2001.[9] The BNP had not stood in the previous two elections, but this time had a candidate, who polled 5.4% of the vote, and beat Murray to come fourth. Both were outperformed by the Liberal Democrats in third place, and the Conservatives, who remained second. Straw held on comfortably, albeit with a reduced majority; his winning vote share of 42% was the smallest since the seat became a single-member constituency until the 2024 result.
In August 2011, Jack Straw claimed that he had no plans to retire, despite turning 65 earlier that month.[10] Two years later, on 25 October 2013, Straw announced that he would stand down as Blackburn's MP at the next election.[11] In March 2014, Kate Hollern was selected, via an all women shortlist, as the candidate for Labour for the 2015 general election, and held the seat.
| Election | First member | First party[12] | Second member | Second party | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1832 | William Feilden | Whig[15] [16] [17] | William Turner | Whig[18] [19] | |||
| 1841 | Conservative | John Hornby | Conservative | ||||
| James Pilkington | Whig[20] [21] [22] | ||||||
| 1852 | William Eccles | Radical | |||||
| 1853 by-election | Montague Joseph Feilden | Whig | |||||
| 1857 | William Henry Hornby | Conservative | |||||
| 1859 | Liberal | ||||||
| 1865 | Joseph Feilden | Conservative | |||||
| 1869 by-election | Henry Feilden | Conservative | Edward Hornby | Conservative | |||
| 1874 | William Edward Briggs | Liberal | |||||
| 1875 by-election | Daniel Thwaites | Conservative | |||||
| 1880 | Sir William Coddington | Conservative | |||||
| 1885 | Sir Robert Peel | Conservative | |||||
| 1886 | William Hornby | Conservative | |||||
| 1906 | Philip Snowden | Labour | |||||
| 1910 | Liberal | ||||||
| 1910 | Sir Henry Norman | Liberal | |||||
| 1918 | Percy Dean | Coalition Conservative | Coalition Liberal | ||||
| 1922 | Sir Sidney Henn | Conservative | National Liberal | ||||
| 1923 | John Duckworth | Liberal | |||||
| 1929 | Labour | Labour | |||||
| 1931 | Sir George Elliston | Conservative | Sir WD Smiles | Conservative | |||
| 1945 | Labour | Labour | |||||
| 1950 | constituency abolished: see Blackburn East and Blackburn West | ||||||
| Election | Member | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Barbara Castle | Labour | ||
| 1979 | Jack Straw | Labour | ||
| 2015 | Independent | |||
| 2015 | Kate Hollern | Labour | ||
| 2024 | Adnan Hussain | Independent | ||
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General Election 1939–40:Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;
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