After CCHQ forced all Tory MPs to declare whether they intend to stand at the next election, the question now turns to; firstly whether their local association want them and secondly dealing with the 2023 boundary review. Guido’s already covered the former, with the ongoing row up in Shrewsbury about Daniel Kawczynski’s reselection; now for the latter – boundary review rows.
Up in the top corner of England, Cumbria is set to be butchered by the review. The seat tally for the county is being lowered from six to five, involving the creation of a new Penrith and Solway constituency. The move is pitting Penrith and the Border MP Neil Hudson against Workington MP Mark Jenkinson. In many ways a metaphor for the battle over the soul of the Tory party…
Mark Jenkinson is firmly red wall. The 2019 election was constantly described as a fight for ‘Workington Man’, a northern male over the age of 45 without a university degree, who enjoys rugby league, and who had previously supported Labour but voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum. Jenkinson won these voters over, and firmly backed Boris in No. 10 including his attempted comeback after Liz Truss’s resignation.
Neil Hudson on the other hand is not particularly favoured by many of his colleagues. In 2021 the wet – who sources suggest has occasionally mentioned he was once a vet – was called a ‘Judas’ by colleagues after pocketing hundreds for a fake news op-ed that led to Tory MPs being inundated with hate mail from animal welfare groups. In 2022 he tried standing for chairman of the DEFRA Select Committee, and was endorsed by hard-left Labour MPs who praised him for working “against his Conservative colleagues”. He called for Boris to resign last summer…
Hudson tells his local paper that he firmly believes he is the “right choice” to inherit the new seat, despite the fact two-thirds of Mark Jenkinson’s Workington seat is going into the new Penrith and Solway constituency – versus just 37% of Neil Hudson’s current Penrith and the Border seat. This should be a fun one to watch…
