The Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket constituency is located in Suffolk. Its largest settlement is the town of Bury St Edmunds, with a population of around 41,000.[4] Other settlements include the smaller town of Stowmarket and the villages of Elmswell and Stanton. The constituency is predominantly rural and agricultural. Bury St Edmunds is a historic market town. It has a long religious history as the site of an abbey and a cathedral, and a tradition of brewing as the base of pub and brewing company Greene King.
The constituency is generally affluent.[5] Residents are older and have higher incomes compared to national averages, and White people make up 95% of the population.[6] At the district council level, most of Bury St Edmunds is represented by Labour Party councillors, whilst the rural areas elected mostly Conservatives in the west and Greens in the south east. Voters in the constituency marginally supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum; an estimated 53% voted in favour of Brexit, similar to the nationwide figure.[6]
The District of West Suffolk wards of: Abbeygate; Bardwell; Barningham; Eastgate; Ixworth; Minden; Moreton Hall; Pakenham & Troston; Rougham; St. Olaves; Southgate; Stanton; The Fornhams & Great Barton; Tollgate; Westgate.[7]
The newly created constituency was notionally a safeConservative seat, with an estimated majority of 22,085 votes (41.7%) based on the results of the 2019 election. The predecessor seat of Bury St Edmunds had not elected a non-Conservative MP since it elected one Liberal at the 1880 election, and none at all since becoming a single-member constituency in 1885.
However, at the 2024 election the Tories suffered an above-average swing against them of 21.6% and won less than half their vote share from 2019, turning their notional majority of over 22,000 into a Labour majority of 1,452. Along with the party gaining Suffolk Coastal, this was the first time since it won Sudbury in 1945 that Labour had won any Suffolk constituencies not centred on Ipswich or Lowestoft.
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