Kevin Hollinrake has been re-elected as the member of parliament for Thirsk and Malton in the general election.
The former Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake will return to parliament as an opposition MP representing Thirsk and Malton despite a 23 per cent drop in support compared to the last general election in 2019.
Labour’s Lisa Banes came second with 24 per cent of the vote, increasing her party’s vote share by more than 6 per cent, while Reform UK’s Mark Robinson came third with 18 per cent.
The results were announced at 5.30am on July 5 at Scarborough Sports Centre.
Mr Hollinrake said he was “fantastically enthusiastic” about being re-elected but conceded that “it’s not the ideal result tonight, let’s be clear about it”.
The Conservative Party lost more than 240 seats in a Labour landslide that saw several senior Conservative ministers lose their seats.
When asked what the next five years would look like for the constituency, which includes Filey, he said: “The A64 has been a very important one as well as making sure we look after our small businesses, our farmers and fishermen.
“All those things are really important. Making sure we get a fair deal for North Yorkshire in terms of funding.
“We will be putting pressure on the opposition on all those things and we’ve got some notable successes over the last few years.”
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), he said that despite the results, there was “still an appetite for conservatism” and that his party “needs to go away, lick its wounds, decide how we rebuild [with] a new leader and a new offering to the people”.
Asked if he would consider standing to be leader of the Conservative Party in a future leadership election, he said: “There are far better-qualified people than me to do that, but I’d be interested to see who does put their hat in the ring.
“I hope it’s a constructive contest and we want to make sure that we’re looking at this optimistically and positively rather than running negative campaigns and talking each other down,” he added.
In his victory speech, Mr Hollinrake paid “particular tribute to my very good friend Rishi Sunak” who he said was “a very decent man and I’m very sorry that he’ll feel that he’s let us down as a team and as a nation”.
“But really, he’s tried to do what is right for the country at all times,” he concluded.
- The Conservative Party’s Kevin Hollinrake won with 19,544 votes (39.2 per cent)
- Labour’s Lisa Banes came second with 11,994 votes (24.1 per cent)
- Reform UK’s Mark Robinson was third and received 8,963 (18 per cent)
- Liberal Democrat candidate Steve Mason was fourth with 5,379 votes (10.8 per cent)
- The Green Party’s Richard McLane was fifth with 2,986 votes (6 per cent)
- The Yorkshire Party’s Luke Brownlee came last with 931 votes (1.9 per cent)
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