Explainer
General Election 2024: 10 seats to watch in the East Midlands and why
The Labour Party is predicted to win a landslide victory in the General Election, according to an exit poll by Ipsos UK for ITV News/Sky News/BBC.
Labour and Keir Starmer look to have won an overall majority in excess of 100.
With Nigel Farage’s surprise return to frontline politics and Reform surging in the polls, there is increasingly fevered speculation as to how much damage Reform will do to the Conservatives in the election, particularly in areas in the East Midlands, including Bassetlaw.
ITV News Central looks at the some of the most significant seats in the East Midlands and at what would happen to the Conservatives if Reform replicates the performance of Ukip from 2015, when the party secured nearly 4 million votes – 12.6% of the national total.
Derby North
Derby North was won by the Conservative Party from Chris Williamson, an Independent candidate and former Labour MP, at the 2019 General Election.
It was flipped by Tory candidate Amanda Solloway, who won 21,259 votes, and a slim majority of 2,540.
The constituency has changed hands between the Tories and Labour for more than a decade.
Williamson held the seat from 2010-2015, but was then narrowly defeated by Solloway in 2015. Williamson won again in 2017, but Solloway then flipped it back to Tory blue in 2019.
Now, according to the prediction polls, Labour may be about to win back the seat.
Derby South
This constituency has been a Labour hold since 1950.
In 2019 Dame Margaret Beckett won with 21,690 votes, with conservative Ed Barker coming second with 15,671.
The turn out was 58.1% with a majority of 6,019.
But could that change? As veteran Labour MP Margaret Beckett, who served in the constituency for some 50 years, and was the first woman to serve as foreign secretary, announced her retirement in 2022.
She did not contest the 2024 general election. Is this the best opportunity the Tories have had to flip the seat in decades?
Ashfield
This seat is currently represented by controversial MP Lee Anderson.
The Reform candidate, who was formerly a Tory MP and cast out by the Conservative Party, is fighting to keep his Nottinghamshire constituency.
He won by 19,231 votes, with Ashfield Independents candidate Jason Zadrozny coming second with 13,498 votes.
In January, Clarke-Smith, alongside Lee Anderson, stepped down from their Tory party positions as deputy chairmen over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill.
Leicester East
Labour's Claudia Webbe won this constituency in 2019 with 25,090 votes.
She won with a hugely reduced majority which her predecessor Keith Vaz had built over the previous decades - from 22,428 in 2017, to just 6,019 by 2019.
While an MP, Webbe was convicted of harassment and consequently lost the Labour whip to become independent.
Keith Vaz is also hoping to make a return to parliamant by standing as a candidate for a new party called One Leicester.
There's been a Tory revival in the constituency of late, with key council wards already having returned Conservative councillors for the first time in the recent local election.
Leicester South
Leicester South has been held by Labour's Jonathan Ashworth since 2011 - taking over from current Labour Leicester City Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby who held the role from 2005.
Ashworth served as Shadow Health Secretary during the Covid pandemic, regularly holding Matt Hancock to account in parliament.
The Labour and Co-operative candidate won 33,606 votes in the last general election, a majority of 22,675 votes.
But could the Israel-Gaza conflict be a key turning point for voters in Leicester?
North West Leicestershire
Andrew Bridgen MP, who has been elected four times, could lose this seat after being kicked out of the Conservative party and running for the seat as an Independent.
He sparked controversy and was expelled from the Conservative Party after his criticism of the Covid-19 vaccine.
More recently, Bridgen was ordered to pay former Health Secretary Matt Hancock more than £40,000 in legal fees after an early stage of their libel battle.
Mansfield
The Nottinghamshire constituency is held by Conservative Ben Bradley, who won 63.9% of the vote in 2019 - increasing his win over Labour with 31,484 votes.
Bradley flipped the seat from Labour in the 2017 election - and is now also the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council.
In the recent 2024 local elections, he unsuccessfully launched a bid to become the Mayor of the East Midlands. Labour's Claire Ward won the mayoral election, becoming the region's first elected mayor, with a significant majority of 50,000.
The former Watford MP had 181,040 votes (40.27%), with Bradley on 129,332 votes.
Could his local election defeat be reflected in the general election?
Bassetlaw
Conservative Brendan Clarke-Smith gained the Bassetlaw seat from Labour in the 2019 election.
He won 28,078 votes, compared to Labour's 14,065. A majority of 27.6%.
In January, Clarke-Smith, alongside Lee Anderson, stepped down from their Tory party positions as deputy chairmen over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill.
Last year, a video of a former army medic protesting outside the office of the Conservative MP went viral after he claimed it was easier to get patients to hospital in warzones than in the UK.
Loughborough
Three seats have been bellwethers at every general election since February 1974, including Loughborough.
The incumbent is Conservative Jane Hunt, who won with a majority of 7,169 in 2019.
It's a top Labour target at this election, and the Tories would lose it to Labour on a swing of 5.9%.
The town ranks 61st on Labour's target list.
Amber Valley
This seat is held by Conservative Nigel Mills, who won in 2019 with 29,096 votes - a share of 63.9%.
But, polls suggest that this bellwether seat, which often reflects the national outcome of the election, could see the Tories lose in Amber Valley.
The constituency last voted Labour in 2005.
Have you heard our new podcast Talking Politics? Every day in the run-up to the election Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda…