Yahoo News Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner election - Conservative Jonathan Evison re-elected in close vote
Conservative Jonathan Evison said he had "bucked the national trend" by being re-elected as Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner.
He won the position in 2021 by just under 8,000 votes, albeit under a different electoral system. Leads in East Riding, North and North East Lincolnshire local authority areas meant he could afford to be a distant third in Hull.
Labour's Simon O'Rourke came a close second overall, 4,237 votes behind. The Liberal Democrats' Bob Morgan was third overall, but topped Hull's count.
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Jonathan Evison was "absolutely delighted" to be re-elected. In his acceptance speech, he admitted: "I came into this competition with a significant amount of misgiving because of the national picture. But we've worked hard, we've done a lot of work in the intervening three years, and I'm absolutely delighted. I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to go home, have a couple of glasses of wine and maybe go to bed now." He told Grimsby Live he would continue the programme of community project schemes he has instigated in the role so far.
Simon O'Rourke blamed the Lib Dem vote in Hull for the loss. "I'm very disappointed, especially given the national trend towards Labour. I think the big issue had was in Hull where we rather hoped the Liberal Democrats might lend us their vote in order to get the Conservative out. They didn't and the Liberal vote in Hull stood up. I think that cost us the election overall.
"It's time for a general election, and that's the message that's being sent," he said though of the national trend. He added: "The election results locally were very positive, especially in North East Lincs, where now we have a hung council, even though Hull remains a Liberal Democrat council for the time being."
Responding to Bob Morgan winning Hull's popular vote, Hull City Council's Lib Dem leader Cllr Mike Ross said: "This shows just how strong support for the Liberal Democrats is in Hull. We bucked the national trend by keeping control of Hull City Council and now we've beaten Labour in the popular vote in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. The Lib Dem team here is committed to making Hull a safer place to live and we'll do just that on the council."
Speaking about the community programmes the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner has supported in the last three years, Jonathan Evison said: "We have 200+ projects running but 65 are particularly youth-orientated. And we also have a very large education programme in schools, you might have heard it, it's called 'Not in Our Community'. It's an all-encompassing criminal justice type programme."
He said the programmes reached tens of thousands of young people, before invoking a former Archbishop of York. "Didn't Desmond Tutu say we're pulling people out of the river all over the place, but we're not going upstream to see why they're falling in. I want to be proactive and stop that from happening because the best way you protect a victim is by stopping them become a victim in the first place." He added the Office of Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner would work with Hull University to work out community programme areas of focus.
Asked if there needed to be a change in Conservative Party leadership, given national results, Mr Evison said: "I don't, actually. I've got a lot of faith in Rishi." He added: "I think the Conservative Party has definitely not benefitted from the Covid era, it didn't benefit from the fallout from the Covid era, and then we had a really difficult time from a national picture 18 months ago."
Overall turnout was 18.68 per cent. A full results breakdown of the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner election is below.
Overall Result
Conservative - Jonathan Evison 51,083 votes (39.67%)
Labour - Simon O'Rourke 46,846 votes (36.38%)
Liberal Democrat - Bob Morgan 30,834 votes (23.95%)
Total rejected ballots 2,103.
By Local Authority area:
East Riding
Conservative - Jonathan Evison 23,410 votes (51.27%)
Labour - Simon O'Rourke 12,898 votes (28.25%)
Liberal Democrat - Bob Morgan 9,349 votes (20.48%)
Hull
Liberal Democrat - Bob Morgan 15,734 votes (42.31%)
Labour - Simon O'Rourke 15,668 votes (42.13%)
Conservative - Jonathan Evison 5,788 votes (15.56%)
North Lincolnshire
Conservative - Jonathan Evison 11,124 votes (51.30%)
Labour - Simon O'Rourke 8,623 votes (39.76%)
Liberal Democrat - Bob Morgan 1,938 votes (8.94%)
North East Lincolnshire
Conservative - Jonathan Evison 10,761 votes (44.41%)
Labour - Simon O'Rourke 9,657 votes (39.85%)
Liberal Democrat - Bob Morgan 3,813 votes (15.74%)
