West Lancashire by-election: Candidates step up battle for votes

The people of West Lancashire will head to the polls on Thursday in a Westminster by-election triggered by Rosie Cooper's resignation.

The veteran Labour MP announced in the autumn she was standing down after more than 17 years to become chair of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.

Paula Keaveney, a politics lecturer at Edge Hill University within the constituency, said the outcome of the by-election was very important.

She said it would be "interesting to see what the turnout is and just get a sense of how people are feeling about Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and (Labour leader) Sir Keir Starmer".

West Lancashire is a very interesting constituency since it is a very mixed area - both urban and rural.

With constituents often having very different priorities in life, candidates have a tough job in appealing to them all.

Analysis

By Mike Stevens, BBC Radio Lancashire political reporter

Nestled perfectly between Merseyside, Greater Manchester and the rest of Lancashire, the 73,000 voters within the West Lancashire constituency are spread out across the three population centres of Skelmersdale, Ormskirk and Burscough.

Surrounding those are dozens of smaller towns and villages, many of which are involved in the farming and agriculture sectors.

The constituency was created in 1983 and has been represented by both the main parties in the years since.

Labour will be hoping to build on their current 8,000 majority.

Speaking to Politics North West Journalist Roger Blaxall, who runs the Qlocal website in Ormskirk, explained: "On one side you've got Ormskirk and Aughton which are very wealthy and the other side is Skelmersdale which is much more industrialised and so the vote is always very disparate."

He said many voters were very focussed on the inconsistent levels of public transport provision in the constituency.

While Ormskirk is getting a new bus station, Mr Blaxall pointed to the fact Skelmersdale does not have a railway station.

The lack of a hospital in Skelmersdale, as well as the general state of the economy and cost-of-living crisis could also influence voters' decision-making about where to place their X on the ballot paper.

Mr Blaxall said "there was a lot of disappointment in the recent Levelling Up announcement when Skelmersdale didn't even get a mention for its new railway station", which he said Ms Cooper had been seeking "for a long, long time".

While Labour comfortably beat the Conservatives at the last general election, with the other parties lagging far behind, Mr Blaxall thinks it would be dangerous for the incumbents to be complacent.

He believes a new party - Our West Lancashire (OWL) - could mount a significant challenge at the next general election and the major parties "need to watch their backs".

OWL was formed by a former Conservative councillor and has seven seats on the borough council. They have decided not to stand in this by-election.

In alphabetical order, the candidates standing in Thursday's by-election are:

Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [email protected]