Hartlepool by-election, 2004
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On 23 July 2004, the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool, in England, Peter Mandelson (Labour), was nominated as the United Kingdom's new European Commissioner. On 8 September, he accepted the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, thereby disqualifying himself from Parliament, and causing a by election. Polling took place on 30 September.
It was the last of six by elections which were held during the 2001–2005 Parliament.
Out of a registered electorate of 68,517, there were 31,362 valid votes, making a turnout of 45.77%. This was the highest by election turnout since the Romsey by election in May 2000. The Labour Party candidate Iain Wright won the seat with a majority of 2,033, a substantially reduced majority. The Liberal Democrat vote more than doubled, leaving them a close second. The United Kingdom Independence Party held their deposit, and beat the Conservatives into third place.
This marked the first time they had come third in a by election (and followed a successful European election in June 2004, in which they had come third country wide and won twelve seats). It would be over six years before they ever improved on this position, when they took second place at Barnsley Central in 2011.
They would go on to win a by election, for the first time a little over a decade after the Hartlepool contest in Clacton, in October 2014. The Conservative vote in Hartlepool dropped considerably, leaving them in fourth place for the first time in an English by election since Liverpool Walton in 1991.
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