Southampton Itchen (UK Parliament constituency)
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Southampton, Itchen is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Royston Smith, a Conservative member of parliament.[n 2] Discounting the Speaker (of the House of Commons) returned in the early 1970s in two elections, local voters have elected the MP from only two parties alternately for various periods, with one party reaffiliation (defection) between elections when the Labour Party split in the 1980s.
Southampton, Itchen | |
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Borough constituency for the House of Commons | |
County | Hampshire |
Electorate | 74,513 (December 2010)[1] |
Major settlements | Southampton |
Current constituency | |
Created | 1950 |
Member of Parliament | Royston Smith (Conservative) |
Seats | One |
Created from | Southampton |
Since 1987, campaigns in the seat have resulted in a minimum of 26.8% of votes at each election consistently for the same two parties' choice for candidate, and the next highest-placed share having fluctuated between 3% and 23% of the vote. In those recent elections, save for 2015 when UKIP surged nationally, the third-placed candidate has been a Liberal Democrat, whose candidate lost their deposit in the result perhaps uniquely for an English university city seat in 2017, but which takes in far fewer of the university areas than Southampton Test. The seat attracted nine candidates in 1997; three in 1992. Oldest elections in the seat were sometimes a two-candidate contest, as in comparator mid-twentieth century English elections.