Post by warofdreams on May 5, 2020 16:55:00 GMT
This constituency is what you get when you draw up boundaries based on the current non-metropolitan counties. It's the southern bit of North Yorkshire, but because the City of York is its own county, it creeps around the west side of that city and flows into the area south of Harrogate. Beyond being in the same county, what unites the seat is that it is essentially rural. Most of it has links to York - the two towns of Selby and Tadcaster do - but the southern end of the seat has better links to Wakefield and Castleford, over in West Yorkshire, while the northern end links to Harrogate, which has its own seat. The Ainsty, meanwhile, is a historic area west of York with no major settlements, and which falls only partly within the seat.
A seat focused on Selby has existed since 1885, when Barkston Ash was created - stretching further west than the current seat. This was almost always a Conservative seat, the Liberals managing a win at their peak, in a 1905 by-election. Labour didn't stand until 1923, but came close in 1929 and 1945, when they stood a candidate from the agricultural workers' union. In 1983, the area around Selby and Tadcaster became the Selby constituency, which also took in the southern suburbs of York. This was a bellwether, although the Conservative majorities before 1997 were large, and the Labour ones thereafter were small. Since 2010, we've had the current seat, which without the York suburbs - not so much pro-Labour as anti-Conservative - and with the wealthy area south of Harrogate - is safely Conservative, and is represented by Nigel Adams.
At first glance, a Conservative seat in rural North Yorkshire is no surprise, but the area around Selby is marked by closed coal mines, normally a mark of an area with high levels of Labour support. The large Selby Colliery complex closed only in 2004, and Kellingley Colliery was the last in the UK, closing in 2015. But these are atypical, having opened in the 1980s and 1960s respectively. Most miners transferred from other mines, on their way out. Those at the Selby Colliery complex mostly commuted in from West Yorkshire, while Kellingley was right by the county boundary anyway. While there were undoubtedly a few miners living in the seat - Labour were very strong in the villages immediately around Kellingley - this wasn't a mining constituency in the traditional sense.
Selby itself was an important inland port and centre for shipbuilding, and in local elections, it still favours the Labour Party. Tadcaster is a brewing town, and far more Conservative. Labour can also perform well in some of the villages around Selby - Riccall, Brotherton, and even Sherburn-in-Elmet, but elsewhere, and particularly in the Harrogate part of the seat, the Conservatives are usually dominant. The 2019 local elections saw some real success for the Yorkshire Party, winning four councillors, led by former Conservative Mike Jordan, but they managed only 3.4% in the general election, well behind the Liberal Democrats who are largely invisible in the seat.
A seat focused on Selby has existed since 1885, when Barkston Ash was created - stretching further west than the current seat. This was almost always a Conservative seat, the Liberals managing a win at their peak, in a 1905 by-election. Labour didn't stand until 1923, but came close in 1929 and 1945, when they stood a candidate from the agricultural workers' union. In 1983, the area around Selby and Tadcaster became the Selby constituency, which also took in the southern suburbs of York. This was a bellwether, although the Conservative majorities before 1997 were large, and the Labour ones thereafter were small. Since 2010, we've had the current seat, which without the York suburbs - not so much pro-Labour as anti-Conservative - and with the wealthy area south of Harrogate - is safely Conservative, and is represented by Nigel Adams.
At first glance, a Conservative seat in rural North Yorkshire is no surprise, but the area around Selby is marked by closed coal mines, normally a mark of an area with high levels of Labour support. The large Selby Colliery complex closed only in 2004, and Kellingley Colliery was the last in the UK, closing in 2015. But these are atypical, having opened in the 1980s and 1960s respectively. Most miners transferred from other mines, on their way out. Those at the Selby Colliery complex mostly commuted in from West Yorkshire, while Kellingley was right by the county boundary anyway. While there were undoubtedly a few miners living in the seat - Labour were very strong in the villages immediately around Kellingley - this wasn't a mining constituency in the traditional sense.
Selby itself was an important inland port and centre for shipbuilding, and in local elections, it still favours the Labour Party. Tadcaster is a brewing town, and far more Conservative. Labour can also perform well in some of the villages around Selby - Riccall, Brotherton, and even Sherburn-in-Elmet, but elsewhere, and particularly in the Harrogate part of the seat, the Conservatives are usually dominant. The 2019 local elections saw some real success for the Yorkshire Party, winning four councillors, led by former Conservative Mike Jordan, but they managed only 3.4% in the general election, well behind the Liberal Democrats who are largely invisible in the seat.