Yahoo News Rhondda and Ogmore general election 2024: The winning MP and the constituency vote totals
Labour has held the Rhondda and Ogmore seat. Chris Bryant has been re-elected as MP.
The boundaries of all but one Welsh seat have changed ahead of the 2024 election. This seat includes the whole of the former Rhondda constituency and parts of what used to be the separate seat of Ogmore. Both were traditionally Labour voting.
It was a resounding win for the MP, who had held the former Rhondda seat since 2001. During his speech following the result, the Labour politician thanked people of the new constituency of the Rhondda and Ogmore. "I promise you only one thing," he added. "No valley shall be forgotten".
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READ MORE: The general election results in full for every constituency in Wales in 2024
Bryant had won 17,118 of the votes. In second place was Reform UK candidate, Darren James with 9,328 of the votes, followed by Plaid Cymru's candidate Owen Cutler with 5,198 of the votes. Conservative candidate Adam Robinson received 2,050 votes, Green Party's Christine Glossop won 1,177 votes and the Lib Dem candidate Gerald Francis got 935.
ConversatiRhondda and Ogmore Results: Labour hold Chris Bryant (Lab) - 17,118 Owen Cutler (PC) - 5,198 Gerald Francis (LB) - 935 Christine Glossop (GP) - 1,177 Darren James (RU) - 9,328 Adam Robinson (Con) - 2,050Plaid Cymru candidate, Owen Cutler, came in X position with X votes. Conservative candidate, Adam Robinson garnered X votes. Liberal Democrats’ candidate, Gerald Francis, won X votes. Darren James for the Reform UK party got X votes, while Christine Glossop for the Green Party got X votes.
Ahead of the result announcement, Conservative candidate Adam Robinson said that the election campaign had been a "tough challenge" and described it as an "uphill struggle" due to the "national feeling" in Wales and across the UK. Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru candidate Owen Cutler said that he did not think his party would win the Rhondda and Ogmore seat, but that the aim was to “increase the share of the vote and increase the number of votes”.
The voters of Rhondda and Ogmore constituency took to the polling stations on Thursday, July 4, with turnout coming in at 48.25% and 35,942 votes cast. The newly-drawn seat was first contested during this year’s general election, following the 2023 periodic review of Westminster constituencies.
Where does the constituency cover?
For 22 years, Chris Bryant was the MP for the Westminster constituency of Rhondda, which was around the western edge of the Rhondda Cynon Taf council area and included the population centres of Treherbert, Maerdy, Tylorstown, Tonypandy, and Pen-y-Graig. Following a review however, the seat was scrapped and the entire constituency became part of a new seat called ‘Rhondda and Ogmore’.
It includes Treorchy, Treherbert, Maerdy, Ferndale, Tylorstown, Porth, Tonyrefail East and Ogmore Vale, Gilfach Goch, Blaengarw and Pontycymmer.
What happened in the general election in 2019
The General Election 2024 result:
Chris Bryant (Labour) 17,118
Owen Cutler (Plaid Cymru) 5,198
Gerald Leslie Francis (Lib Dem) 935
Christine Glossop (Green Party) 1,177
Darren James (Reform UK) 9,328
Adam Robinson (Conservatives) 2,050
Electorate: 73,521 ; Turnout: 48.25% (35,942 votes cast).
In the last election, Bryant was re-elected for the Rhondda seat thanks to a comfortable win with 16,115 of the votes (54.4%). It was a 11,440 majority over Conservative candidate Hannah Jarvis, who came in second place with 4,675 votes (15.8%).
Despite the win for Bryant, the 2019 general election had been a huge blow for Labour, who had lost six seats and had seen its vote share plummet in seats across Wales. Speaking to the BBC at the time, Bryant described the night as the "worst night for Labour since 1935" and said that his party needed to do "soul searching".
During his speech following his 2024 general election win, Bryant said: "I do not doubt for a single instance we in Labour aren't on probation. We in Welsh Labour are on probation and we always need to do better. Of course, I want to celebrate tonight -it's going to be a fantasticable night for Labour.
"It feels like a burden has been lifted off of our shoulders as a nation and I am so thrilled that so many people have voted for change and put their trust in Labour. But the task ahead of us is genuinely daunting." He added: "We really have our work cut out for us as we form a new government, but we can and we must to change tomorrow.
"But long lasting change takes time. So let me end with these thoughts: many of you did not vote for me or Labour, but I am here for everyone in this constituency. I have never taken anything for granted, I have never believed in a thing such as a safe seat, no party has a right to anyone's vote. My aim is to earn your trust and every single person's trust in this constituency. It cannot be politics as usual".
Who is Chris Bryant?
Bryant was born in Cardiff and he now lives in Porth with his husband. Prior to getting elected as MP in 2001, he was a priest in the Church of England and Head of European Affairs at the BBC.
He was a government minister under Gordon Brown. Before the election, he was the shadow minister for creative industries and digital, and former chair of the Commons committee on standards and privileges.
Speaking to WalesOnline ahead of the election, he said that the UK was “crying out for change”. He said: “I want to implement the whole of the Labour manifesto because the country is crying out for change. I’ve campaigned hard for a national strategy for people with brain injuries so that we don’t just save lives, we give them back a real quality of life and as much independence as possible.”
In the last election in 2019, he was re-elected as the MP for the now-abolished Rhondda seat, where he won 16,115 of the votes (54.4%), with his majority at 11,440. In the 2017 general election, his majority was 13,746, but in the 2019 election, his vote share was down 9.69%.
The politician has spoken candidly about his health issues. In May of this year, he announced how he was given a devastating second cancer diagnosis. It comes five years after the Rhondda politician was first treated for skin cancer.
He posted a video on X in which the 62-year-old made the announcement that a form of skin cancer had been found on his right lung. He said he had been undergoing immunotherapy after having the cancer removed.
The politician is also an author. In February of this year, he published a book called James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder about two gay men that were the last to be hanged for their sexuality in Britain. He also wrote a book called The Glamour Boys in 2020 about Tory MPs in the 1930s.
