Tory Ben Houchen Wins Tees Valley Mayoral Election
Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen was re-elected on Thursday (Alamy)
3 min read
The Conservative party's Ben Houchen has been re-elected as Mayor of the Tees Valley.
Houchen received 81,930 votes, while Labour candidate Chis McEwan received 63,141, it was announced on Friday afternoon.
In percentage terms, this puts Houchen on 54 and Labour on 41 — a significant narrowing of the last time the mayorality was contested in 2021.
Speaking following the announcement this lunchtime, Houchen said: “I am absolutely humbled by everybody that voted for me.
"Teesside is a place where I was born, I grew up, other than a very short sabbatical to Newcastle for four years and then I came straight back, it is a place where I am going to be for the rest of my life.
“And to be re-elected for a third term in my home, in my community, is absolutely the greatest honour that anybody could ever give me.”
In a tweet congratulating Houchen, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: "Excited for Ben to keep delivering more jobs and opportunities for local people."
There had been suggestions in the run-up to Thursday's vote that Houchen was at risk of losing the mayorality to Labour, despite winning the last Tees Valley mayoral election with over 70 per cent of the vote.
Defeat for the Tory mayor would have been seen as another major blow to Prime Minister Sunak in what is shaping up to a bruising set of local elections for the Conservatives.
The Conservative party saw its vote collapse in the Blackpool South by-election, where Labour's Chris Webb became the northern seat's new MP.
Elsewhere, the Conservatives are set to lose hundreds of council seats across the country as results come in over the weekend, reflecting Labour's large, double-digit leads in the opinion polls.
However, Houchen has managed to see off the challenge from McEwan, who is deputy leader of Darlington Council, to secure a third term in office as Tees Valley mayor. He was first elected as the region's mayor in 2017.
In the run-up to polling day on Thursday, Houchen appeared to distance his personal campaign from the national Conservative party, as Sunak struggles to repair the damaged brand of the latter in the eyes of the public.
In one social media post in the weeks leading up to polling day, Houchen said "I'm not dictated, whipped or told what to do by any party", and stated Thursday's mayoral election "isn't about national politics or the nonsense that happens in Westminster".
Andy Street, the Tory mayor in the West Midlands, like Houchen has sought to divorce himself from the national Conservative party in his bid to be re-elected. The result of that contest is expected to be announced on Saturday afternoon.
A Labour spokesperson claimed that the swing towards the opposition party in the Tees Valley mayoral result, estimated to be over 16 per cent, would lead to every parliamentary consistuency voting Labour if replicated at the next general election, which Prime Minister Sunak must call this year.
"The Conservatives should be extremely worried that their candidate had to run as an independent to win," said the spokesperson.
Polling guru Sir John Curtice told the BBC the Houchen victory didn't change the gloomy overall picture for the Tory party. He said it was a "silver lining to the cloud, but it doesn't disperse the cloud that was hanging over the Conservatives at 6 o clock this morning".
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