Politics: Meet London’s New MPs

The national focus has shifted to Theresa May’s new Cabinet and the 10 MPs from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party who are expected to prop up her minority government but London is still digesting the changes to its own political representation.

All three of the major parties saw considerable turnover in their London MPs with some new faces entering the House of Commons and some familiar older ones reappearing after a break from the green benches. Here are some of the winners in London that we are likely to hear more from.

Marsha De Cordova

The victory of Marsha De Cordova was a highlight of Labour’s election night. Her convincing win in Battersea over  Jane Ellison, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury was the first Labour gain of a Tory seat on the night. Born with a visual impairment that is so serious she is registered as blind, De Cordova met former Cabinet Secretary David Blunkett before the election and drew inspiration from his pioneering career as a blind MP.

A councillor on Lambeth Council and a disabled rights activist, De Cordova is a staunch supporter of Jeremy Corbyn having signed an open letter criticising the PLP’s attempt to remove him in the aftermath of Brexit. A rising star of the party.

Bambos Charalambous

Persistence has paid off for Bambos Charalambous, a 49-year-old solicitor for Hackney Council, an now one of London’s new MPs. Before June 8 Charalambous had run three times as a Labour candidate without success, including two failed challenges to Tory MP David Burrowes in Enfield Southgate. At the third match-up between the pair the Labour man came out on top, turning a deficit of 4,753 votes in 2015 into a winning margin of 4,355 votes.

First elected to Enfield Council in 1994, he became the first British MP with Cyprus-born parents. In his victory speech he described the Brexit vote as a “big disappointment for the majority of us”, and the issue was seen as a major handicap for Burrowes, a staunch Brexiteer.

Vince Cable – Liberal Restoration

A political heavyweight returning to the fray. The former business secretary was a high-profile casualty of the 2015 election, when his ousting personified the catastrophic Liberal Democrat collapse across the country.

His campaign for his old seat of Twickenham focussed heavily on the economic risks that he believes Brexit poses for London and the UK. He won 52.8% of the vote, an increase of 14.7% on his performance two years earlier.

As a former acting leader of the Lib Dems, Cable could be the next leader of the party but at 74 he would not offer a long-term solution for the party, but is one of the key new MPs.

Ed Davey

Another potential candidate to take Tim Farron’s job following a disappointing election result for the Lib Dems, 51-year-old Davey regained Kingston & Surbiton. Like Cable he was first elected during the 1997 Labour landslide and was turfed out in 2015 in the backlash against the Cameron-Clegg coalition.

Davey served as Secretary for Energy and Climate change during the Coalition Government, and after losing his seat went back into management consultancy, his profession before entering the Commons. He was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours for his political and public service.

Zac Goldsmith – Comeback Kid

It has been a rollercoaster year for Goldsmith. Once seen as a rising star of the Conservative Party, he was selected to take on Sadiq Khan in the 2016 London Mayoral election. His campaign was widely criticised and ended in a humiliating defeat.

He then quit the Tory party in protest at the Tory Government’s support for expanding Heathrow airport, resigning from his Richmond Park seat in order to trigger a by-election over the issue. He ran as an independent but lost out to Sarah Olney of the Lib Dems, who monopolised the Remain vote after the Greens agreed not to stand a candidate.

This time he ran under the Conservative banner and was boosted by Labour’s refusal to join the Greens in standing aside for the Lib Dem incumbent, even though Labour had won only 3.6% of the vote at the by-election and had little chance of victory. The Labour candidate ended up taking 5,773 votes, helping Goldsmith to a 45-vote victory over Olney, one of the slimmest margins of the election.

 

by Thomas Chambers

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