'Humbled' Labour MP Sam Dixon says 'the work begins now'

Samantha Dixon said "the work begins now" after being elected MP for Chester North and Neston. Mrs Dixon, previously MP for the City of Chester constituency, won 22,258 votes, a majority of 11,863 over second-placed Simon Eardley of the Conservatives.

In her speech, Mrs Dixon thanked the returning officer, ballot counters, other candidates, campaign team and her husband, Nick. Of him, she said: “He and I met in 1997 during a Labour landslide and clicked, and here we are still campaigning on what looks like another Labour landslide.

“We are seeing the downfall of the Conservative government, we are seeing voters turning away from the chaotic politics of the last 14 years. There are no quick fixes, but Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are realistic about the scale of the challenge that we face and have realistic, practical, common-sense steps that we will take to fix our broken country.

“I’m honoured to be the first Member of Parliament for Chester North and Neston, which is a beautiful constituency that does hide pockets of real inequality and people really struggling. My wonderful team who have worked with me when I served the City of Chester have helped so many people in the old constituency, and I’m really pleased that we are all going to be able to continue our work in the new constituency.

“I am humbled to be given the opportunity to serve the people of Chester North and Neston, and I will do so tirelessly. The work begins now.”

Speaking to CheshireLive, Mrs Dixon said: “I am humbled by that majority, it’s substantial. I’m so thrilled that people in this constituency felt they could put their cross by my name.

“I talked about the inequalities that we have in Chester North and Neston [in my speech]. They’re quite hidden within the constituency, and we in our office found over the 18 months that we wanted to help as many people as we could.

“We dealt with 9,000 cases in 18 months, and we kept a tally of the amount of money we were aware of that we had managed to get back into people’s pockets through the case work we do with people meeting bureaucracy and not being able to get what they are entitled to. We kept track of it, and we had £430,000 that we had put back into people’s pockets.

“Hopefully, government will start working a bit better, the bureaucracy will meet the needs of the people better, but there is still a lot to be done.”

Cllr Simon Eardley, the Conservative candidate, won 10,388 votes. He said: “Congratulations to Sam on a strong result; I hope that she does the very best that she possibly can. I am proud to have got over 10,000 votes, which, in the light of everything else going on is a pretty good result from my perspective. It has been an interesting and enjoyable experience, and I’m looking forward to putting my feet up at the weekend.”

Mrs Dixon thanked Cllr Adam Langan in her speech. He told CheshireLive: “I’m blown away by the scale of the victory in Chester North and Neston, it’s much greater than we anticipated. Obviously, we never take votes for granted. We’ve worked so hard in Chester for absolutely donkey’s years, Sam’s a brilliant candidate, and she’s going to be brilliant for Chester North and Neston. Thanks to everyone for putting their support in her.”

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