The area was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 and had lay in Mid Surrey that elected two MPs. The constituency covered great bounds, skirting around Croydon to its south to reach Caterham, Warlingham, Chelsham and Farleigh in the North Downs and bearing formal alternate titles of the Wimbledon Division (of Surrey) and the North East Division of Surrey which in all but the most formal legal writing was written as North East Surrey.[2]
An Act reduced the seat in 1918 to create the Mitcham seat in the south-east; another in 1950 created Merton and Morden in the south.[n 3]
Political history
Since 1885 the seat has elected Conservative MPs except from 1945 to 1950 and 1997–2005, when the Labour candidate won the seat during that party's national landslide years. While the 2005 Conservative majority was marginal, the 2010 majority was 24.1% of the vote, so on the percentage of majority measure, but not on the longevity measure, it bore a safe seat hallmark.[n 4]
In elections to the London Borough of Merton, the seat returns all of the council's Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors. Since 1990 the ward of Merton Park has only ever returned councillors for Merton Park Ward Residents Association.[3] Since 1994 the ward of West Barnes, which contains Merton's half of the town of Motspur Park, has swung between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats; the latter presently hold all three seats in the ward.[4][5][6][7] In the local elections in 2018, Liberal Democrat councillors were elected for the wards of Trinity and Dundonald for the first time in the borough's history, with a further first time win for the Liberal Democrats in a by-election in the Cannon Hill ward in 2019.
In 2010, the second-placed candidate was a Liberal Democrat. The national collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote at the 2015 election meant that the Liberal Democrats did not return to 2nd place until 2019, when they did so with a 22.7% upswing in their vote. The seat is now one of the most marginal in the country[8] and a top Liberal Democrat target and Conservative defence for the next general election.
In the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, the London Borough of Merton, of which the constituency is a part, voted to remain by 62.9%, and 70.6% of this constituency itself voted to remain in the European Union.[9] In September 2019 the incumbent, Stephen Hammond lost his party's whip for rebelling on a key Brexit vote. He briefly sat as an Independent and the whip was restored on 29 October 2019, with 9 of 21 other rebels of the same party.
1885–1918: The Sessional Division of Croydon except so much as is within a district of the Metropolis, the parishes of Caterham, Chelsham, Farley, Warlingham, Merton, and Wimbledon, so much of the Parliamentary Borough of Deptford as is in Surrey, and the area of the Parliamentary Boroughs of Battersea and Clapham, Camberwell, Lambeth, Newington, Southwark, and Wandsworth.
1918–1950: The Municipal Borough of Wimbledon, and the Urban District of Merton and Morden.
1950–1955: The Municipal Boroughs of Wimbledon, and Malden and Coombe.
1955–1974: The Municipal Borough of Wimbledon.
1974–1983: The London Borough of Merton wards of Cannon Hill, Priory, West Barnes, Wimbledon East, Wimbledon North, Wimbledon South, and Wimbledon West.
1983–2010: The London Borough of Merton wards of Abbey, Cannon Hill, Dundonald, Durnsford, Hillside, Merton Park, Raynes Park, Trinity, Village, and West Barnes.
2010–present: As above except Durnsford ward had been replaced by Wimbledon Park ward following a local authority boundary review.
The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames wards of: Old Malden; St. James.
The London Borough of Merton wards of: Abbey; Hillside; Merton Park; Raynes Park; Village; Wandle; West Barnes; Wimbledon Park; Wimbledon Town & Dundonald.[10]
The Merton Borough wards reflect the local authority boundary review which became effective on 4 May 2022, with the Cannon Hill ward being moved to Mitcham and Morden. The wards of Old Malden and St. James (as they existed on 1 December 2020) will be transferred from Kingston and Surbiton. [11]
According to analysis by the New Statesman the Liberal Democrats, rather than the Conservatives, would have won the seat if the 2019 election had been held on the new boundaries. [12]
Constituency profile
The seat has a commuter-sustained suburban economy with an imposing shopping centre, overwhelmingly privately built and owned or rented homes and a range of open green spaces, ranging in value from elevated Wimbledon Village - sandwiched between Wimbledon Common and Wimbledon Park[n 5] - where a large tranche of homes exceed £1,000,000 - to Merton Abbey ruins and South Wimbledon, with more social housing in its wards.
Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.5% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[13]
Wards in this area often see a minority of Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors. Voters have quite high median and mean incomes, with an above-average public sector workforce which together means the seat resembles similar Tory-strong seats for London with other party traditions also followed: Richmond Park, Kingston and Surbiton and Putney. As widely touted in opinion polls the runner-up of the 2019 election became the Liberal Democrat.
Results of House of Commons seat Wimbledon since 1950 - it having lost substantial territory immediately beforehand due to local population and housing expansion.
^The other measure is the historic measure which was met also in this instance until 1997.
^This is where the All-England lawn tennis club and the croquet club where The Championships are held in June each year.
^The day before the vote Cllr Uddin (Labour) and his solicitors' business co-owner had their practising certificates suspended by their professional regulator, who seized the business' files and took control of its accounts. Crescent Law, the firm, specialises in personal injury. An investigation was opened into possible misconduct or unethical practices; it was set to report within weeks. Cllr Uddin remained on the ballot paper and his local Party took no action given the early stage of the intervention.[21]
^Great Britain, Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales. "The public general acts". Proprietors of the Law Journal Reports, 1884 – via Internet Archive.
