UK Conservative Party wipes out 80 years of Labour control

LONDON — Britain’s ruling Conservative Party seized an 80-year stronghold from the beleaguered Labour Party on Friday, marching onward in its bid to dominate traditional opposition heartlands.

Labour's loss of the seat in Parliament was tempered, however, by its success Thursday in beating back a strong challenge in another district by the anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party (UKIP).

In the election in Copeland in scenic Lake District, Conservative Party’s Trudy Harrison won 13,748 votes to Labour candidate Gillian Troughton's 11,601. Harrison called her victory "truly historic."

In the northern city of Stoke-on-Trent, which Labour has held since 1950, its candidate, Gareth Snell defeated UKIP candidate Paul Nuttall, 7,853 votes to 5,233. Snell said his win showed that "hatred and bigotry" are unwelcome in the city.

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The elections were called because Stoke's Labour member of Parliament since 2010 resigned to become director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Copeland's Labour member for 12 years quit to head community relations at a nuclear decommissioning site.

UKIP eyed Stoke, famed for its pottery, because 69% of voters there backed Brexit in the referendum. However the campaign was dealt a blow when Nuttall, UKIP's candidate in Stoke and the party’s leader, became embroiled in a controversy over a false statement about being on a charity board.

Copeland is near a nuclear submarine construction site, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been an outspoken opponent of such nuclear programs.

"To win power to rebuild and transform Britain, Labour will go further to reconnect with voters, and break with the failed political consensus," Corbyn said in a statement following the results.

Matthew Goodwin, a politics professor at the University of Kent, told USA TODAY: "Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party has been losing support and struggling to remain relevant in the national debate."

John McDonnell, a senior Labour Party politician, told the BBC following the election results that "our party has got to rebuild itself from the grassroots in the communities like Copeland."

“We are in trouble,” John Woodcock, another Labour member of Parliament said of the party's chances in the 2020 general election. “We are on course to a historic and catastrophic defeat and that will have very serious consequences for all of the communities that we represent."