‘People were fed up with Tories’: New MP explains why Lib Dems took Winchester

The Tories were wiped out of Winchester in what new Liberal Democrat MP Danny Chambers described as a “perfect storm”.

Chambers’ sweep to power makes him the first Lib Dem MP to hold the Winchester seat in over a decade.

He said: “I think there’s two or three different reasons, it was almost a perfect storm that came together at the same time.”

The fight for the Winchester seat has always been a two horse race between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, with the majority of the vote being shared out between the two.

In 2010, the Conservatives won the seat with a 48.5% share of the vote.
The Liberal Democrats followed with a 43.1% share of the vote.

In 2015, the Conservatives held the seat with a 55.0% share of the vote.
The Liberal Democrats followed with a 24.4% share of the vote.

In 2019, the Conservatives held the seat with a 48.3% share of the vote.
The Liberal Democrats narrowly missed out with a 46.6% share of the vote.

Chambers, who worked as a vet before turning to politics, said: “The people who voted Conservative between sort of 2010 to 2019 maybe, didn’t like Boris Johnson breaking rules, lying to parliament, lying to the Queen, proroguing parliament unlawfully, breaking international law.

“They’re Conservatives because they believe in our institutions, they believe in the rule of law, they believe in competence.

“And the Liberal Democrats came in and said that we care about standards of public life.

“I’m a vet, if I broke the rules and I lied about it, I’d get struck off, and yet nothing happened to these people.”

Steve Brine, the previous Conservative Winchester MP, who had held the seat for the past three elections, decided not to run for 2024, instead being replaced by Flick Drummond, the previous MP for Meon Valley from 2019 to 2024, and Portsmouth South from 2015 to 2017.

Steve Brine addressed a letter to his constituency association in Winchester.

He said: “Going forward, I feel I can pursue some of the issues I care about, in health and perhaps elsewhere, outside parliament as well as within.”

With the absence of Brine, who had been the Winchester MP since 2010, and the huge backlash against the Conservative government across the country, Chambers felt that this influenced a lot of the Winchester votes.

He said: “In Winchester specifically, just seeing how much Liberal Democrats cared. We had thousands of us knocking on doors, speaking to people, asking what their concerns were.

“We spoke to twenty four thousand people last year. We spoke to about twenty five thousand people this year.

“We really know how people feel about things, and people I think were just fed up with Conservative MPs taking them for granted.”

Despite the Conservative loss, Mr Brine took to X to congratulate newly elected MP Danny Chambers.

He said: “Congratulations to @DannyVet on your election to @HouseofCommons for the best constituency in the land. Enjoy the moment and remember the hardwork now really begins.”

Since being an MP, Chambers has been made mental health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats.

He has also pushed forward a bill to put an end to puppy smuggling.