Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees loses Labour nomination bid for new Bristol constituency

By Will Standring, News Editor

Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, has lost in his bid to become the Labour Party candidate for the newly created Bristol North East seat.

The mayor-of-seven-years and supposed favourite was beaten by incumbent Mayor of Lewisham, Damien Egan, in a party members vote on Sunday morning.

Since his announcement in November that he would be ‘putting [his] hat in the ring’, Rees has racked up endorsements from unions Unite, UNISON and GMB as well as current Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy and the Bristol University Labour Party.

The result throws Rees’ future as a Bristol representative into doubt as his tenure as Mayor will end in May following the scrapping of the position in a 2022 referendum.

In a statement on twitter, Rees congratulated Egan on his victory and reaffirmed his commitment to help Labour win the seat.

Irish-born but Kingswood-raised Egan is believed to have won the election with 63 per cent of first preference votes from the electorate of just under 700 Labour Party members.

Councillor Leigh Ingham, whose ward lies in the new constituency, also stood to be the new Labour candidate.

The new Bristol North East constituency, established in the 2023 Boundary Review, is expected to be a safe Labour seat having been formed from Labour strongholds in the city such as Eastville and Fishponds as well as left-leaning wards in the old Kingswood seat like Staple Hill.

Damien Egan announced his candidacy in June with a call for a ‘better way to do politics’.

He took to twitter to thank local Labour Party members for selecting him and was congratulated by figures such as Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Bristol MPs Darren Jones and Thangam Debbonaire.

Egan will contest the seat for Labour in the next General Election, provided this falls after the New Year, when the constituency boundary changes come into effect.