Post by Robert Waller on Oct 27, 2023 17:46:42 GMT
This is heavily based on the previous profile written by yellowperil, lightly updated by me, with comments on boundary changes by Pete Whitehead.
Hastings, as befits a Cinque Port and a place synonymous with the most famous date in English history, has been sending MPs to parliament since the fourteenth century, but the Borough of Hastings today falls some way short of the numbers to support a modern Westminster constituency, so since 1983 has required a small part of the neighbouring Rother district to make up the numbers - currently 4 wards of Rother. They include, appropriately enough, two more Cinque Ports that were added to the eponymous and original five and they are Rye and Winchelsea. Of course in those far off days they were the new boys in the Cinque Port confederacy, upstarts one might say, so in a nice piece of self-promotion they dignified themselves with the title of the Ancient Towns, and today after seven centuries or so that seems a fair description, except that Winchelsea, now genuinely ancient, struggles to justify the name of town. So the constituency on which the 2019 general election was fought was made up of the Borough of Hastings in total, plus the Rother ward of Rye and Winchelsea, and then also three more deeply rural wards, now called Eastern Rother, Southern Rother, and Brede & Udimore (these are the new ward names and boundaries which became effective 2019)
Hastings is a fairly compact urban borough, comprising the Old Town in a narrow valley leading to the sea and the beached fishing boats, the pretty compact town centre ,the cliff tops behind it with its ancient castle once occupied by the Conqueror, various suburbs clinging to the steep hills behind, the rather splendid purpose built resort of St Leonards, begun by Decimus Burton in the 1830s and lying just to the west of Hastings proper, and more hillside suburbs behind that. These days, Hastings itself is in the main a Labour town and 9 of the 16 wards were Labour held in the most recent elections, in May 2022. The Conservatives only hold on in 3, all at the west end: West St Leonards, Maze Hill up above that, and the north-western fringe in Ashdown ward. Undoubtedly the Conservative vote will be better in a general election, but it’s pretty unlikely they could win in Hastings without the Rother bit of the constituency. The Greens made a significant advance in 2022. Their first ever win in the borough, in Old Hastings in 2021, was not repeated a year later; but they did gain three others, all from Labour: Central St Leonards, Gensing immediately to its north, and Tressell just north of Old Hastings. The latter had been solidly Labour since 1998, which is rather appropriate as it is named after the author of the early socialist novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, published in 1914 three years after his death from tuberculosis at the age of 40.
In 2015 the Tories had won in all four wards in the Rother end of the constituency, and generally by quite comfortable margins, so returning then all 8 councillors. This really was the blue end of the constituency. That had not always been the case and Rye town had often been quite tightly fought and had sometime returned Lib Dem or Labour councillors, in contrast to sea of blue in the more rural wards surrounding, but by 2015 that all seemed in the past. However May 2019 was rather different. Across Rother district the Conservatives were to lose control of the council, and while the more dramatic bits were happening in the neighbouring constituency, two seats did go Lib Dem, with their candidates elected in Rye and in Southern Rother. Indeed they just possibly might have done even better had they put up more than one candidate in each ward. There were clearly problems in the Conservative camp in Rother, probably mainly about the Tory administration on the council, but it really might have suggested that the Hastings Tories could not depend on the Rother Tories to ride to their rescue. One place where the Tories appeared to be still doing fairly well was the rural ward of Eastern Rother, extending along the coast as far as Camber. The Tory candidate topping the poll there was Sally-Ann Hart – who was to become MP for Hastings & Rye on Amber Rudd’s retirement in December 2019. In May 2023 The Liberal Democrats again shared representation with the Tories in Eastern Rother, the Conservatives did again take both in Eastern Rother (though their second candidate narrowly squeaking in 15 votes ahead of the top Green) – but it was Labour who won both council seats in the unlikely looking surrounds of Rye & Winchelsea, their first victory there since 2011.
Hastings has shared many of the problems of other south coast seaside resorts and fishing centres. It is rather different to the average resort though, with the Stade, its unique fishing beach with its distinctive net houses being a different sort of tourist draw. The slightly faded grandeur of St Leonards, too, although more closely matched to the other Sussex resorts like Brighton, Eastbourne or Bexhill has a rather different sort of elegance to its rivals. On the whole, Hastings has had a bit of a struggle updating itself for the twenty-first century. The new art gallery on the Stade was controversial with some of its near neighbours, including the fishermen, some of whom thought it should not have been located on the Stade. Its fortunes have been a bit mixed and in spite of some success it lost its main sponsor the Jerwood Foundation, so has relaunched from the Jerwood Gallery now as the Hastings Contemporary (2019). It has not quite had the transforming impact of the Turner Contemporary in Margate, with which it is inevitably compared.
Rye is the second major centre of the constituency, a really handsome hilltop town with a big tourist draw and a very arty centre, and it is surrounded by a lovely rural and coastal area, with a number of smallish settlements- Winchelsea, a sort of mini version of Rye, then Fairlight, with its crumbling cliffs rather like the eroding coasts of East Anglia, Guestling, Pett, the beach resort of Camber, the inland Brede valley villages of Udimore and Brede itself. This is a rather different world to the rather workaday place that is the central Hastings, and much more natural Tory territory.
When the constituency was formed in 1983 it was first held by Kenneth Warren , who had held the old Hastings constituency since 1970, back in the days when it was expected that south coast seaside towns were naturally Conservative. Warren carried on until his retirement in 1992, and he was succeeded by another Conservative, Jacqui Lait. In 1997the seat was captured by Labour's Michael Foster until he in turn lost it back in 2010 to the Tories in the form of Amber Rudd. Very much seen as a protege of Theresa May in those early years, Rudd rapidly rose to be Home Secretary by 2016, but when her majority in 2017 shrank down to 346, the constituency was regarded as super-marginal. One factor was seen as being that she was regarded as having Remainer sympathies in a seat with quite a vocal Leaver electorate. Her subsequent parliamentary career was somewhat chequered but she was back in the cabinet as Work and Pensions Secretary before resigning the Conservative whip in 2019 and sitting as an independent. She was replaced as Conservative candidate for the 2019 general election by Sally-Ann Hart, who was able to increase the Conservative majority to a rather more comfortable 4,043.
The boundaries here will return more or less to the status quo ante (the 1983-2010 boundaries) as about 3,500 voters in the inland part of the seat (Brede Valley) are returned to Bexhill & Battle. This will not be without political significance as this is a strong Conservative area and reduces their notional 2019 majority by just over 500 votes.
With Labour taking 42.1% of the overall vote in Hastings borough in the most recent contests in 2022 to 29.6% for the Conservatives, and that gain in Rye & Winchelsea in May 2023 reducing the counterbalancing ‘Rother’ effect, this must be a prime candidate for a Tory loss at the next general election, and a return to being represented at Westminster as it was in the twin huge majority years of 1997 and 2001. In fact, even if Keir Starmer’s version of Labour does not replicate the Blair landslide, they will probably make a gain here, just as is likely well to the west within the Sussex coastal strip.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 22.1% 165/575
Owner occupied 59.1% 410/575
Private rented 26.7% 92/575
Social rented 14.2% 331/575
White 92.1% 259/575
Black 1.3% 296/575
Asian 2.5% 358/575
Managerial & professional 29.4% 349/573
Routine & Semi-routine 24.9% 264/573
Degree level 28.6% 379/575
No qualifications 20.3% 178/575
Students 4.9% 405/575
2019 General Election: Hastings and Rye
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Sally-Ann Hart 26,896 49.6 +2.7
Labour Peter Chowney 22,853 42.1 -4.1
Liberal Democrats Nick Perry 3,960 7.3 +3.9
Independent Paul Crosland 565 1.0 New
Majority 4,043 7.5 +6.8
Turnout 54,274 67.4 -4.2
Conservative hold
Swing 3.4 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Hastings and Rye consists of
93.9% of Hastings & Rye
1.5% of Bexhill & Battle
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_327_Hastings%20and%20Rye_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional Result
Hastings, as befits a Cinque Port and a place synonymous with the most famous date in English history, has been sending MPs to parliament since the fourteenth century, but the Borough of Hastings today falls some way short of the numbers to support a modern Westminster constituency, so since 1983 has required a small part of the neighbouring Rother district to make up the numbers - currently 4 wards of Rother. They include, appropriately enough, two more Cinque Ports that were added to the eponymous and original five and they are Rye and Winchelsea. Of course in those far off days they were the new boys in the Cinque Port confederacy, upstarts one might say, so in a nice piece of self-promotion they dignified themselves with the title of the Ancient Towns, and today after seven centuries or so that seems a fair description, except that Winchelsea, now genuinely ancient, struggles to justify the name of town. So the constituency on which the 2019 general election was fought was made up of the Borough of Hastings in total, plus the Rother ward of Rye and Winchelsea, and then also three more deeply rural wards, now called Eastern Rother, Southern Rother, and Brede & Udimore (these are the new ward names and boundaries which became effective 2019)
Hastings is a fairly compact urban borough, comprising the Old Town in a narrow valley leading to the sea and the beached fishing boats, the pretty compact town centre ,the cliff tops behind it with its ancient castle once occupied by the Conqueror, various suburbs clinging to the steep hills behind, the rather splendid purpose built resort of St Leonards, begun by Decimus Burton in the 1830s and lying just to the west of Hastings proper, and more hillside suburbs behind that. These days, Hastings itself is in the main a Labour town and 9 of the 16 wards were Labour held in the most recent elections, in May 2022. The Conservatives only hold on in 3, all at the west end: West St Leonards, Maze Hill up above that, and the north-western fringe in Ashdown ward. Undoubtedly the Conservative vote will be better in a general election, but it’s pretty unlikely they could win in Hastings without the Rother bit of the constituency. The Greens made a significant advance in 2022. Their first ever win in the borough, in Old Hastings in 2021, was not repeated a year later; but they did gain three others, all from Labour: Central St Leonards, Gensing immediately to its north, and Tressell just north of Old Hastings. The latter had been solidly Labour since 1998, which is rather appropriate as it is named after the author of the early socialist novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, published in 1914 three years after his death from tuberculosis at the age of 40.
In 2015 the Tories had won in all four wards in the Rother end of the constituency, and generally by quite comfortable margins, so returning then all 8 councillors. This really was the blue end of the constituency. That had not always been the case and Rye town had often been quite tightly fought and had sometime returned Lib Dem or Labour councillors, in contrast to sea of blue in the more rural wards surrounding, but by 2015 that all seemed in the past. However May 2019 was rather different. Across Rother district the Conservatives were to lose control of the council, and while the more dramatic bits were happening in the neighbouring constituency, two seats did go Lib Dem, with their candidates elected in Rye and in Southern Rother. Indeed they just possibly might have done even better had they put up more than one candidate in each ward. There were clearly problems in the Conservative camp in Rother, probably mainly about the Tory administration on the council, but it really might have suggested that the Hastings Tories could not depend on the Rother Tories to ride to their rescue. One place where the Tories appeared to be still doing fairly well was the rural ward of Eastern Rother, extending along the coast as far as Camber. The Tory candidate topping the poll there was Sally-Ann Hart – who was to become MP for Hastings & Rye on Amber Rudd’s retirement in December 2019. In May 2023 The Liberal Democrats again shared representation with the Tories in Eastern Rother, the Conservatives did again take both in Eastern Rother (though their second candidate narrowly squeaking in 15 votes ahead of the top Green) – but it was Labour who won both council seats in the unlikely looking surrounds of Rye & Winchelsea, their first victory there since 2011.
Hastings has shared many of the problems of other south coast seaside resorts and fishing centres. It is rather different to the average resort though, with the Stade, its unique fishing beach with its distinctive net houses being a different sort of tourist draw. The slightly faded grandeur of St Leonards, too, although more closely matched to the other Sussex resorts like Brighton, Eastbourne or Bexhill has a rather different sort of elegance to its rivals. On the whole, Hastings has had a bit of a struggle updating itself for the twenty-first century. The new art gallery on the Stade was controversial with some of its near neighbours, including the fishermen, some of whom thought it should not have been located on the Stade. Its fortunes have been a bit mixed and in spite of some success it lost its main sponsor the Jerwood Foundation, so has relaunched from the Jerwood Gallery now as the Hastings Contemporary (2019). It has not quite had the transforming impact of the Turner Contemporary in Margate, with which it is inevitably compared.
Rye is the second major centre of the constituency, a really handsome hilltop town with a big tourist draw and a very arty centre, and it is surrounded by a lovely rural and coastal area, with a number of smallish settlements- Winchelsea, a sort of mini version of Rye, then Fairlight, with its crumbling cliffs rather like the eroding coasts of East Anglia, Guestling, Pett, the beach resort of Camber, the inland Brede valley villages of Udimore and Brede itself. This is a rather different world to the rather workaday place that is the central Hastings, and much more natural Tory territory.
When the constituency was formed in 1983 it was first held by Kenneth Warren , who had held the old Hastings constituency since 1970, back in the days when it was expected that south coast seaside towns were naturally Conservative. Warren carried on until his retirement in 1992, and he was succeeded by another Conservative, Jacqui Lait. In 1997the seat was captured by Labour's Michael Foster until he in turn lost it back in 2010 to the Tories in the form of Amber Rudd. Very much seen as a protege of Theresa May in those early years, Rudd rapidly rose to be Home Secretary by 2016, but when her majority in 2017 shrank down to 346, the constituency was regarded as super-marginal. One factor was seen as being that she was regarded as having Remainer sympathies in a seat with quite a vocal Leaver electorate. Her subsequent parliamentary career was somewhat chequered but she was back in the cabinet as Work and Pensions Secretary before resigning the Conservative whip in 2019 and sitting as an independent. She was replaced as Conservative candidate for the 2019 general election by Sally-Ann Hart, who was able to increase the Conservative majority to a rather more comfortable 4,043.
The boundaries here will return more or less to the status quo ante (the 1983-2010 boundaries) as about 3,500 voters in the inland part of the seat (Brede Valley) are returned to Bexhill & Battle. This will not be without political significance as this is a strong Conservative area and reduces their notional 2019 majority by just over 500 votes.
With Labour taking 42.1% of the overall vote in Hastings borough in the most recent contests in 2022 to 29.6% for the Conservatives, and that gain in Rye & Winchelsea in May 2023 reducing the counterbalancing ‘Rother’ effect, this must be a prime candidate for a Tory loss at the next general election, and a return to being represented at Westminster as it was in the twin huge majority years of 1997 and 2001. In fact, even if Keir Starmer’s version of Labour does not replicate the Blair landslide, they will probably make a gain here, just as is likely well to the west within the Sussex coastal strip.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 22.1% 165/575
Owner occupied 59.1% 410/575
Private rented 26.7% 92/575
Social rented 14.2% 331/575
White 92.1% 259/575
Black 1.3% 296/575
Asian 2.5% 358/575
Managerial & professional 29.4% 349/573
Routine & Semi-routine 24.9% 264/573
Degree level 28.6% 379/575
No qualifications 20.3% 178/575
Students 4.9% 405/575
2019 General Election: Hastings and Rye
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Sally-Ann Hart 26,896 49.6 +2.7
Labour Peter Chowney 22,853 42.1 -4.1
Liberal Democrats Nick Perry 3,960 7.3 +3.9
Independent Paul Crosland 565 1.0 New
Majority 4,043 7.5 +6.8
Turnout 54,274 67.4 -4.2
Conservative hold
Swing 3.4 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Hastings and Rye consists of
93.9% of Hastings & Rye
1.5% of Bexhill & Battle
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_327_Hastings%20and%20Rye_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional Result
| Con | 25804 | 49.1% |
| Lab | 22272 | 42.4% |
| LD | 3892 | 7.4% |
| Green | 33 | 0.1% |
| Oth | 565 | 1.1% |
| Majority | 3532 | 6.7% |