Barking (UK Parliament constituency)

Barking is a constituency in Greater London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.

Political history
The area has elected Labour MPs since its creation in 1945, on strong majorities of 20.4% of the vote or greater, except for the results in 1983 and 1987.

The rise in support for the British National Party since the turn of the 21st century saw the party attain 17% of the vote at the 2005 general election. Party members and supporters were optimistic that the party would soon make the breakthrough into UK parliament, and party leader Nick Griffin stood in Barking for the 2010 general election. However, his performance in Barking was poor, as he polled 14.8% of the vote (which actually represented a decline in percentage terms compared to 2005), and Margaret Hodge retained the seat with more than half of the vote. During the run-up to the 2010 election, filmmaker Laura Fairrie had access to the British National Party and Labour Party campaigns, and later produced a documentary The Battle for Barking, which premiered on More 4 on 30 November 2010.

Bucking the national trend, the incumbent MP Margaret Hodge almost doubled her majority at the 2010 general election.

Constituency profile
Set in the east of Greater London, the Barking constituency is one of the areas identified for London's planned expansion in housing. The Barking Riverside regeneration project aims to create new homes, jobs and services on the site of the former power station.

Having returned Labour MPs since 1945, Margaret Hodge has served as the MP for the seat since 1994. A challenge from the BNP in 2005 saw the Labour vote reduced by over 13% from the 2001 general election. The BNP, with 16.9% of the vote, out-polled the Liberal Democrats for third place and were 27 votes behind the Conservatives.

According to 2011 United Kingdom census data, the seat had the 21st highest proportion of unemployed people amongst constituencies in England and Wales, at 7.4%. It also has the third-highest proportion of people from Africa, while one in six identifies as Asian/Asian British. In 2010, Labour won with 54.3% of the vote, Conservatives 17.8%, BNP 14.6%.

In 2015, the UKIP vote increased to almost 23%, this was predicted as they came the runners up in every ward in the 2014 Barking and Dagenham Council election, they came within 200 votes of winning 4 seats on the council.

In 2017, the UKIP vote collapsed, and Labour and the Conservatives both increased their share of the vote, although Labour's increase of 10.1% saw them claim 67.8% of the vote overall (their largest share in Barking at any election since the 1994 by-election and the greatest at a general election since 1970), increasing their majority from 35.5% to 45.3%.

The constituency has benefited from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and its districts include a larger than average proportion of social housing and earners on low incomes.

2010 boundary changes
Following their review of parliamentary representation the Boundary Commission for England recommended that the wards of Alibon, Parsloes and Valence be transferred from the old Dagenham constituency to Barking, and that following a review of ward boundaries a small part of River ward be transferred from Barking to help form the new Dagenham and Rainham constituency. These boundaries were first contested for the 2010 general election.

2023 boundary review
Further to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, which came into effect for the 2024 general election and was based on the ward boundaries in place at 1 December 2020, the Valence ward was moved to Dagenham and Rainham in order to bring the electorate within the permitted range.

Elections in the 1990s
 
 * Changes are based on the 1992 election result, not the 1994 by-election.