The Hertford and Stortford constituency has returned a Conservative MP since it was created for the 1983 General Election.
Then it was won by Bowen Wells, who four years earlier had defeated Labour’s Shirley Williams, then Education Secretary, to win the Hertford and Stevenage seat. He remained the constituency’s MP until he retired in 2001.
He was succeeded by Mark Prisk, who held the seat for the Tories despite a Labour landslide, with 167 seats and a second term for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mr Prisk’s victory was a case of third time lucky after unsuccessful parliamentary contests in London’s Newham North West in 1992 and in Wansdyke in Avon in 1997.
However he increased his majority on each of the four occasions he sought re-election in Hertford and Stortford, increasing his share from 21,074 votes (44.7%) to 36,184 (60.3%) in 2017.
In September 2019, after 18 years in office, he announced he would not stand again and the following month, members of the Hertford and Stortford Conservation Association selected ardent Brexiter Julie Marson to replace him.
She had previously attempted to be selected for the Grantham and Stamford seat in Lincolnshire after contesting the 2015 and 2017 General Elections for the Tories, coming third and then second in the Dagenham and Rainham seat.
In December 2019, her pro-Boris Johnson platform won her the Hertford and Stortford seat. The constituency’s first female MP got 33,712 votes – 56.1% of the vote compared to Mr Prisk’s 60.3%.
Labour’s Chris Vince was second with 14,092 votes (23.4%, down 5.2%), Liberal Democrat Chris Lucas came third with 8,596 votes (14.3%, up 6.2%) and Lucy Downes was fourth with 2,705 (4.5%, up 1.5%). UKIP’s Alistair Lindsay polled 681 votes (1.1%) and Independent Brian Percival 308 (0.5%).
Mrs Marson, a former Government assistant whip, achieved a majority of 19,260, up from Mark Prisk’s 19,035 in 2017 but down from his 21,509 in 2015.
In 2023, the constituency party’s executive voted 8-7 to reject her request to be readopted as their next General Election candidate but she survived and was reselected after triggering a ballot of all association members.
When Hertford and Stortford voters head to polling stations on Thursday, July 4, the constituency’s boundaries will have changed since 2019.
The wards of Great Amwell, Hertford Heath and Stanstead Abbots, as they existed on December 1, 2020, have been transferred to the Broxbourne constituency and the seat now consists of the East Herts Council wards of Bishop’s Stortford All Saints, Central, North, Parsonage, South and Thorley Manor; Hertford Bengeo, Castle, Kingsmead and Sele; Hunsdon; Much Hadham; Sawbridgeworth; Ware Priory, Rural (Wareside and Widford parishes), St Mary’s and Trinity.
A century ago, Bishop’s Stortford was in the Hertford constituency and its MP was an Independent named Noel Pemberton-Billing, an aviator, inventor and publisher who had been elected in 1916 during the First World War.
In 1921, he was succeeded by Rear Admiral Sir Murray Sueter, who won a by-election standing for press baron Viscount Rothermere’s Anti-Waste League.
Sueter won elections in 1922, 1923, 1924 and 1929 standing as a Unionist before winning in 1931 as a Conservative. He served as MP for Hertford until the end of the Second World War.
He was succeeded in 1945 by Derek Walker-Smith, who went on to serve as Bishop’s Stortford’s MP for almost 40 years.
Boundary changes saw Stortford become part of the new East Hertfordshire constituency in the 1955 General Election. Walker-Smith was its only MP until its abolition in 1983. In the 1964 General Election, his Labour opponent was the writer and TV playwright Dennis Potter.
The candidates who have already confirmed they will contest the Hertford and Stortford seat on July 4 are:
Reform UK - John Burmicz
Liberal Democrats - Helen Campbell
Green Party - Nicholas Cox
Labour - Josh Dean
Conservative - Julie Marson