What an astonishing campaign. I’m in awe of everyone who gave their time, energy, resources and votes.
When recent GE polling in the North East shows Labour with 60 % of the vote, most commentators thought Labour would walk this. The fact that we got 126,652 votes here, nearly as much as Tories, Green, Lib Dem and Reform put together, with no Westminster party machine behind us, shows something is happening in the North East. This was a people powered campaign and it doesn’t die with just one election result. Tens of thousands of people voted for a different type of politics.
There is a huge appetite for pragmatic transformative policies that reduce inequality and treat people with respect. We are building a movement and we’re staying right here.