Wikipedian hub
Bethnal Green and Stepney is a parliamentary constituency in Greater London, which returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The seat first existed between 1983 and 1997 and was re-established under the 2023 review of Westminster constituencies which came into effect for the 2024 general election. In the intervening period, the seat was largely replaced by Bethnal Green and Bow.[2]
The constituency is represented by Rushanara Ali who had been MP for Bethnal Green and Bow from 2010 to 2024.
In its first incarnation, from 1983 to its abolition in 1997, the constituency was only ever represented by the former cabinet minister Peter Shore, who held the seat for the Labour Party. Shore was noted for his opposition to the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community.[3]
The constituency was made up of nine electoral wards of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets: Holy Trinity, Redcoat, St Dunstan's, St James', St Katharine's, St Mary's, St Peter's, Spitalfields, and Weavers. It was abolished in 1997, and largely replaced by the larger Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, in line with the Boundary Commission's recommendation that one seat should be lost in the paired boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham. 297 electors moved to the new Cities of London and Westminster constituency.
Further to the 2023 boundary review, the composition of the constituency is as follows (as they existed on 1 December 2020):
Apart from Shadwell and a small part of Whitechapel ward, previously part of Poplar and Limehouse, the constituency replaced Bethnal Green and Bow – excluding Bow, which was included in the newly created seat of Stratford and Bow. It is the smallest constituency in the UK by geographical area.
| Election | Member[5] | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Peter Shore | Labour | |
| 1997 | constituency abolished: see Bethnal Green and Bow | ||
| 2024 | Rushanara Ali | Labour | |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Rushanara Ali | 15,896 | 34.1 |  39.4
| |
| Independent | Ajmal Masroor | 14,207 | 30.5 | N/A | |
| Green | Phoebe Gill | 6,391 | 13.7 |  9.5
| |
| Liberal Democrats | Rabina Khan | 4,777 | 10.2 | 0.9
| |
| Reform UK | Peter Sceats | 1,964 | 4.2 | 2.2
| |
| Conservative | Oscar Reaney | 1,920 | 4.1 | 6.0
| |
| Animal Welfare | Vanessa Hudson | 348 | 0.7 | 0.2
| |
| Independent | Sham Uddin | 325 | 0.7 | N/A | |
| Independent | Md Somon Ahmed | 315 | 0.7 | N/A | |
| Independent | Reggie Adams | 271 | 0.6 | N/A | |
| SDP | Jon Mabbutt | 233 | 0.5 | N/A | |
| Majority | 1,689 | 3.6 | 59.8
| ||
| Turnout | 46,647 | 56.9 | 8.0
| ||
| Registered electors | 81,922 | ||||
| Labour hold | |||||
| 2019 notional result [a] [7] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Vote | % | |
| Labour | 36,720 | 73.5 | |
| Conservative | 5,065 | 10.1 | |
| Liberal Democrats | 4,634 | 9.3 | |
| Green | 2,101 | 4.2 | |
| Brexit Party | 992 | 2.0 | |
| Others | 439 | 0.9 | |
| Majority | 31,655 | 63.4 | |
| Turnout | 49,951 | 64.9 | |
| Electorate | 77,000 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Peter Shore | 20,350 | 55.8 | +7.5 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Jeremy Shaw | 8,120 | 22.3 | −9.5 | |
| Conservative | Jane Emmerson | 6,507 | 17.9 | −1.3 | |
| BNP | Richard Edmonds | 1,310 | 3.6 | New | |
| Communist (PCC) | Stanley Kelsey | 156 | 0.4 | −0.3 | |
| Majority | 12,230 | 33.5 | +17.0 | ||
| Turnout | 36,443 | 65.5 | +7.9 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | +8.6 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Peter Shore | 15,490 | 48.3 | −2.7 | |
| Liberal | Jeremy Shaw | 10,206 | 31.8 | +1.4 | |
| Conservative | Olga Maitland | 6,176 | 19.2 | +5.2 | |
| Communist | Sarah Gasquoine | 232 | 0.7 | −0.1 | |
| Majority | 5,284 | 16.5 | −4.1 | ||
| Turnout | 32,104 | 57.6 | +1.9 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Peter Shore | 15,740 | 51.0 | ||
| Liberal | Stephen Charters | 9,382 | 30.4 | ||
| Conservative | Demitri Argyropulo | 4,323 | 14.0 | ||
| National Front | Victor Clark | 800 | 2.6 | ||
| Communist | J. Rees | 243 | 0.8 | ||
| Independent | B. N. Chaudhuri | 214 | 0.7 | ||
| Independent | P. J. Mahoney | 136 | 0.4 | ||
| Majority | 6,358 | 20.6 | |||
| Turnout | 30,838 | 55.7 | |||
| Labour win (new seat) | |||||
