Constituency: Copeland (including Whitehaven, Egremont, Seascale, Millom, Crummock, Dalton, Derwent Valley and Keswick)

Population: 80,534

Electorate: 65,332

Breakdown: While a largely rural constituency, around five per cent of the population is employed in the energy industries - the highest proportion of all constituencies in England and Wales.
Almost one in five works in manufacturing; one in 20 is an apprentice.

Key industries/employers: Sellafield is a major employer, and the growth of the Energy Coast looks set to increase the dominance of energy and tech development. The Westlakes Science and Technology Park, to the south of Whitehaven, provides support to the nuclear industry, along with 1,600 jobs involving 70 diverse organisations.

Issues likely to be key to voters' decision: Nuclear industry, infrastructure, government funding, Brexit terms.

Sitting candidate: Trudy Harrison (Con).
Born in Seascale and having formerly worked at Sellafield before joining the party in May 2016. Her pro-nuclear stance played a major role in her by-election victory earlier this year.

Other candidates:

Gillian Troughton (Lab); Herbie Winford Crossman (UKIP); Rebecca Hanson (Lib Dem)

2015 election figures:
Lab (16,750, 42.3%), Con (14,186, 35.8%), UKIP (6,148, 15.5%), Lib Dem (1,368, 3.5%), Green (1,179, 3%). Turnout 63.8%

2017 by-election:
Con (13,748, 44.3%), Lab (11,601, 37.4%), Lib Dem (2,252, 7.2%), UKIP (2,025, 6.5%), Others (1,443, 4%). Turnout 51.35%

Previous holders of the seat for the last four general elections:

  • 2001: Jack Cunningham (Lab), majority 4,964
  • 2005: Jamie Reed (Lab), majority 6,320
  • 2010: Jamie Reed (Lab), majority 3,833
  • 2015: Jamie Reed (Lab), majority 2,564
  • 2017 (by-election): Trudy Harrison (Con), majority 2,147

How constituency voted in Brexit referendum:

  • Remain: 14,419
  • Leave: 23,528

Analysis:
If the perceived wisdom is correct, and by-elections are a chance for voters to issue a short-term kicking before normal service is resumed at the General Election, then Trudy Harrison’s tenure as Copeland’s sitting MP will be one of the shortest on record.
After all, until she claimed the seat for the Conservatives in February, the constituency had been a Labour stronghold since its creation in 1983.
Indeed the last time the area returned a Tory MP was in 1924.
But the result of Copeland by-election was more significant than a simple shot across the bows of the Labour party. Harrison filled the void left by the resignation of Jamie Reed, who quit ostensibly for a new career at Sellafield but mainly because of his frustration with Jeremy Corbyn. And for many in Copeland, Reed’s decision was symptomatic of how they had been abandoned by Corbyn’s Labour.
Corbyn’s unstinting opposition to nuclear power was never going to sit well in an area dominated by the nuclear industry. Harrison, a former Sellafield employee herself, was not going to miss the open goal and overturned Reed’s majority with a swing of six per cent.
As a snapshot of the political landscape in 2017, the result had wider political implications. If UKIP’s leader Paul Nuttall thought his party could capitalise on Copeland’s overwhelming Leave vote, he was swiftly disabused of the notion when candidate Fiona Mills was convincingly beaten into fourth place. If Brexit was an issue in 2016, then the message from west Cumbria was that it was yesterday’s news.
With Corbyn still in power, the chances are Trudy Harrison will not be packing her bags at Westminster on June 9.
Under new leadership, who is to say Copeland will not regain its political soul in future?