Labour’s Claire Ward elected first female mayor of East Midlands | Mayor elections

Labour’s Claire Ward has been elected the first female mayor of the East Midlands, beating Conservative Ben Bradley by more than 50,000 votes.

Ward, a former Labor MP for Watford, said she felt “humiliated” to have been elected to office and that voters had not only backed her but also “a changed Labor Party that can now say with confidence and conviction that We’re ready to lead.”

“You went out and took the opportunity to take decision-making out of the hands of strangers in Whitehall and closer to home,” he told voters in his victory speech.

Ward received 181,040 votes, compared to 129,332 for Bradley. The Green Party came in third with 50,666 votes, just ahead of the Reform Party.

A Labor source described the region as “the beating heart of the general election battleground”, suggesting the party’s comfortable victory there is one of the biggest signs it could be on course for national victory.

The region covers a number of key areas, as well as many former “red wall” seats, including Bolsover and Bassetlaw.

Bradley said it had been a “very close race” and he was “hugely disappointed with the result.”

“We have greatly exceeded national expectations,” he said. “I’m obviously hugely disappointed with the outcome on a personal level, having spent two and a half years trying to work to get us these powers and this support and this investment for our region.”

He hoped his strong local connections and name recognition (as MP for Mansfield and leader of Nottinghamshire County Council) would help him counter the trend of declining support for the Conservatives.

He previously said that, if elected, he would remain an MP until the next general election to avoid a by-election so close to a national vote.

Referring to criticism over his juggling multiple political roles, he said it had been “a hugely challenging period in which we tried to do a lot of jobs, as has been noted on numerous occasions”.

Labor had declared victory hours before the results were announced on Friday afternoon, and polls had predicted it was ahead.

As the votes were being counted, Bradley could be seen looking sad outside the venue and when a reporter asked him how he was feeling, he responded: “Meh.”

Voting turnout was 27.6% and some candidates complained that the new role had not been sufficiently publicized. There were reports that some voters did not receive informational pamphlets about the paper until after Thursday’s vote.

This was the first time voters went to the polls to vote for a mayor for the region, which covers Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but not Leicestershire.

Ward said the new role would mean the East Midlands, which consistently receives the lowest amount of public spending per person, “would no longer be at the back of the queue, would no longer be losing out and would no longer be in second place behind other areas”.

Ward represented the Watford constituency from 1997 to 2010, and served in the Blair and Brown governments as whip and later as justice minister.