Enfield North

Enfield North
Borough constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Enfield North in Greater London.
County	Greater London
Electorate	66,761 (December 2010)
Current constituency
Created	1974 (1974)
Member of parliament	Joan Ryan (Labour)
Number of members	One
Created from	Enfield East and Enfield West
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	London

Enfield North is a peripheral Greater London constituency created in 1974 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Joan Ryan, a member of the Labour Party.

The northernmost seat in Greater London, Enfield North is deeply suburban, almost village-like in parts: particularly its rolling terrain including Gordon Hill and Carterhatch. Green belt legislation has kept housing development at bay, and the area has much in common with the adjoining county of Hertfordshire. The tree-lined avenues of Enfield Chase are also quiet and affluent. However, much of the eastern part of the constituency is in the Lea Valley industrial area and includes some small areas with significant levels of multiple deprivation.

The seat was created for the February 1974 election from the former seats of Enfield West and Enfield East. The former was a safe Conservative seat, at one point represented by Iain Macleod, whereas the latter was a secure Labour seat.

From its creation up until 2015, Enfield North was somewhat a bellwether of the national result; it elected Labour MPs at both the 1974 elections, was taken by the Conservatives and held by comfortable margins in every election from 1979 to 1992, before being won back by Labour in 1997 (albeit with relatively narrow majorities throughout the party's time in government) and narrowly going to the Conservatives in 2010 in an election which nationally saw a hung Parliament. In 2015, however, the Conservatives lost the seat to Labour in an election which nationally saw them win an overall majority.