Hartlepool by-election results LIVE – Boris Johnson’s Tories beat Labour in historic result as Red Wall crumbles again
BORIS Johnson has seized Hartlepool from Labour this morning on another seismic election night that will further redraw Britain’s political map.
The Tories romped home in the North East town, winning it for the first time in more than 50 years in a huge blow to Sir Keir Starmer.
They overturned Labour’s majority of 3,595 from 2019 to take the seat by a massive margin of 6,940.
There were cheers as Conservative candidate Jill Mortimer was announced the winner with 15,529 votes – well ahead of Labour’s Paul Williams on 8,589.
The PM’s party has also made huge gains in key council areas, including Harlow in Essex and Nuneaton and Bedworth, in Warwickshire.
But the results present an “existential” crisis for Sir Keir, and will throw further doubts over his future leadership of the left-wing party.
Welcome to The Sun’s Election 2021 live blog, where you’ll find all the latest results news and updates on the largest local vote in decades.
Approximately 48 million people were able to cast a vote for about 4,650 positions of power today – a much larger number than usual after much of the voting was delayed last year due to covid.
Polls closed at 10pm Thursday evening and a standard election would see votes counted overnight and declared the following day.
But some counts won’t take place until Friday or even Saturday this year with coronavirus measures expected to slow the process down.
Some polling centres are being used for vaccinations or cannot facilitate social distancing.
We’ll bring you everything you need to know to keep up to date as counting up and down the country begins.
Read our Local Elections 2021 live blog below for up to the minute updates…