'We must deliver or we will not be in power'

AS MP MARKS 50TH SURGERY HE HAS WARNING FOR LABOUR

- By DANIEL HODGSON

A TEESSIDE MP has highlighted the electoral risk to the Labour Party if it does not deliver during this parliament.

Luke Myer, Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, was about to mark his 50th surgery in Hemlington, when he sat down to chat with The Gazette, following his first year in the job.

During the conversation, he was confronted with the possibility that if an election were to be held imminently, he would lose his seat. Polls issued over the past months repeatedly show the seat going to Reform UK or back to the Tories - Sir Simon Clarke was MP.

Mr Myer said: "We're a long way off from the next election and anything can happen, if you look at some of the elections around the world, things have changed very very quickly, Canada, for example.

"So things are volatile, but I'm very, very conscious that the public need to see results.

"And if Labour doesn't deliver, then we will not be in power after the next general election, so we can't be complacent."

He said he wasn't complacent, but also gave his view that no one can treat seats as safe, even an MP who has a massive majority. Mr Myer's majority is the slimmest in the north east, at 214 votes.

Mr Myer said a lot of what Labour is doing is "investing in the long term", highlighting recent news on nuclear power that he accepts will take a long time to pay off, "but when they do, it will mean Britain is more secure, we've got clean power, which is cheaper for taxpayers and we're not as subject to those energy shocks that we see as a result of Putin's invasion of Ukraine."