History
The constituency was created in 1983 by the merger of the seats of Hastings and Rye. The Conservative MP for Hastings since 1970, Kenneth Warren, won the new seat, while the Conservative MP for Rye since 1955, Bryant Godman Irvine, retired. Warren held Hastings and Rye until his retirement in 1992; during this period it was a safe Conservative seat, with the Liberal Party (now the Liberal Democrats) regularly coming second. Jacqui Lait held the seat for the Conservatives on Warren's retirement. However, in 1997 the Labour candidate Michael Foster narrowly defeated Lait, becoming the second-least expected Labour MP in the landslide of that year and turning the seat into a three-way marginal. Foster held the seat, again with slim majorities over the Conservatives, in 2001 and 2005, but lost it to the Conservative Amber Rudd in 2010. The Liberal Democrat vote has fallen considerably, leaving them in a distant third place.
Read more about this topic: Hastings And Rye (UK Parliament Constituency)
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