Brent and Harrow: General Election 2024 - Meet the candidates

Alongside the rest of the country, Brent and Harrow residents are set to go to the polls this summer to choose which one of the lucky candidates they feel will, over the next five years, best represent their interests in Parliament.

Last month Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a surprise general election for July 4, with the ruling party largely expected to lose power. Locally, the general election is likely to be relatively uneventful, with the incumbents largely predicted to not only win, but win easily. Except for one seat, that is.

In 2019, Conservative MP Bob Blackman won the Harrow East seat with a majority of 8,170 - taking 54.4 per cent of the vote. However, according to Electoral Calculus - a ‘poll-of-polls’ used to predict the result of an election if it happened tomorrow - he has an 84 per cent chance of losing his seat to the Labour candidate, Primesh Patel.

READ MORE: London General Election candidates 2024 - full list for every MP seat

It should be noted that these predictions don’t use individual constituency polling, they are formed by translating the parties current national polling swing since the 2019 election results into individual seat predictions for this election.

However, with Labour having led in every poll since 2021 and the average lead ranging between 12 per cent - although this low percentage is a big outlier - and 27 per cent, as well as recent by-elections seeing historic swings of up to 28 per cent from Conservative to Labour, it must surely be giving Mr Blackman cause for concern.

Electoral Calculus predicts that the other four seats that fall within Brent and Harrow will ‘100 per cent’ be won by either the incumbent MP - all of which are from the Labour Party - or in the case of the newest seat, Queens Park and Maida Vale, the Labour candidate. Not only are Gareth Thomas in Harrow West, Dawn Butler in Brent East (formerly Brent Central) , and Barry Gardiner in Brent West (formerly Brent North) all predicted to win, they are all predicted to increase their vote share by around 10 per cent.

Against a backdrop of growing NHS waiting lists, rising immigration, cuts to local government finances, and the highest tax burden for 70 years, it may come as a surprise to many that the Conservatives are campaigning under the slogan ‘stick to the plan’.

Labour’s message to voters is one of change. Not only change for the economy and public service delivery, but one of a changed party, ready to serve and stop the ‘chaos of a Tory government’. However, the candidate selection process came close to tipping the party into factional infighting amid accusations that Mr Starmer is stopping candidates further to the left of the party from standing.

Voters are asked to take a look at all of the candidates on offer locally and put a tick in the box of the one who they feel represents their views and will champion them most effectively in Westminster.

All five seats in Harrow and Brent have a range of candidates, from several different parties and independents, to choose from. Use the map above to click on your constituency and meet the candidates who want to represent you for the next five years.

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