Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party managed to hold Stoke-on-Trent Central in a by-election Thursday but lost Copeland, a seat it has held since its creation, to Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives.
The Tory win in Copeland is the first time a government party has gained a seat in a by-election since 1982.
Trudy Harrison, the Conservative candidate in Copeland, won the seat with 13,748 votes, beating Labour’s Gill Troughton on 11,601. The swing to the Conservatives from Labour was close to 7 percent. Harrison said her win was “historic” after the results was announced.
Labour’s Gareth Snell, who campaigned for Remain in the U.K.’s June EU referendum but has since changed tack, won Stoke with 7,853 votes, with UKIP’s party leader Paul Nuttall in second place on 5,233. The swing to UKIP from Labour was just over 2 percent.
Nearly 70 percent of Stoke voters backed Brexit.
Nuttall’s campaign for the Labour-held seat faltered after he was forced to admit he had made false claims on his website that he lost friends in the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster.
Nuttall, who took over UKIP leadership last November, said he will continue as party leader.
âNo, Iâm only 12 weeks in, come on, give me a break. This seat was 72 on our target list, there is a lot more to come from us. We are not going anywhere, we move on. There are other issues beyond Brexit.â
In his victory speech, Snell said the Brexit vote will not define the city. “We will not allow ourselves to be divided by the [Brexit referendum] result,” he said.
Corbyn promised on Twitter that his party “will go further to reconnect with voters and break with the failed political consensus” in the wake of the results.
He added that Labour’s “message was not enough to win through in Copeland.â He called the Stoke victory a “decisive rejection of UKIPâs politics of division and dishonesty.”
The resignation of former Labour MPs Tristram Hunt and Jamie Reed triggered the by-elections.
To win power to rebuild and transform Britain, Labour will go further to reconnect with voters and break with the failed political consensus
— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) February 24, 2017
This article has been updated with new information.