1994 Barking by-election

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1994 Barking by-election

← 1992 9 June 1994 1997 →
Barking parliamentary seat
First party Second party Third party   LD Candidate Margaret Hodge Gary White Theresa May Party Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative Popular vote 13,704 2,290 1,976 Percentage 72.06% 12.04% 10.39% Swing 20.46 pp 2.50 pp 23.47 pp
MP before election Jo Richardson Labour Subsequent MP Margaret Hodge Labour

The Barking by-election was held on 9 June 1994, following the death of Labour Party Member of Parliament for Barking Jo Richardson. Richardson had represented the seat since the February 1974 general election, following Tom Driberg.

The seat had been continuously held by Labour since it was created in 1945, and Richardson had retained her seat comfortably at the 1992 general election with an increased majority of over 6,000.^[1][2] Margaret Hodge, leader of Islington London Borough Council from 1982 to 1992, was selected as the Labour candidate and was the clear favourite to hold the seat at the by-election.^{[citation needed]}

The Conservative Party had taken second place in 1992. John Kennedy, the candidate in 1992, was not selected to fight the 1994 by-election, the Conservative nomination going instead to Theresa May. She had been a councillor in the London Borough of Merton from 1986 to 1994,^[3] and had stood (and lost) in the safe Labour seat of North West Durham in 1992.^[4] Having lost two of the three previous by-elections of the Parliament to the Liberal Democrats, and failing to challenge Labour in the third, the Conservatives were not hopeful of gaining ground.

The Liberal Democrat candidate, Steve Churchman, had taken little more than a tenth of the votes cast in 1992, continuing a downward track since 1983. A new candidate, Garry White, at 21 the youngest parliamentary by-election candidate chosen by a British political party since universal suffrage,^{[citation needed]} was chosen for the by-election.

Three other candidates stood: Gary Needs of the National Front, Gerard Batten of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and HR Butensky of the Natural Law Party.