Coventry North West

People, thought to be anti-racism demonstrators, who walked along the M6 motorway forcing its closure could have put lives in danger, a Coventry MP has said.

Mariah Westlake

The group blocked the carriageway between junctions 3 and 2 in Warwickshire on Sunday, police said, following a protest in Coventry city centre.

Labour MP for Coventry North West, Taiwo Owatemi, was at the demonstration on Broadgate, but said she didn't know about people going to the M6 until after she left Broadgate, and saw them herself on the carriageway.

"I was really concerned about the chances of accidents happening so yes, although I do support the protests that were happening yesterday, I think it could have been done safely and not to endanger any lives," she said.

New Coventry North West MP Taiwo Owatemi says she will campaign for the NHS, after Labour held the seat with a majority of 208, compared to 8,580 last time.

BBC

The winner, who succeeds 81-year-old former Treasury minister and ex-Jaguar boss Sir Geoffrey Robinson, said: "As a senior counter pharmacist, I have witnessed the devastating impact of Tory cuts on our NHS and I promise that I will campaign for our NHS to ensure we have the right amount of doctors, nurses that we need.

"I will support our local schools and head teachers to ensure they have the funding needed to provide our students with adequate services and I will campaign hard for the green new deal to ensure that the future generation have a Coventry for them to live in."

Taiwo Owatemi has been elected MP for Coventry North West, meaning that the Labour Party holds the seat with a decreased majority.

The new MP beat Conservative Clare Golby by just 208 votes. This was less than a quarter of Geoffrey Robinson’s 8,580 vote majority in the 2017 general election.

Greg Judge of the Liberal Democrats came third and the Brexit Party's Joshua Richardson came fourth.

• General election 2019: Latest national results
• Election 2019: Election words and phrases explained

Voter turnout was down by 2.8 percentage points since the last general election.

Nearly 48,000 people, 63.5% of those eligible to vote, went to polling stations across the area on Thursday, in the first December general election since 1923.

Two of the five candidates, Joshua Richardson (Brexit Party) and Stephen Gray (Green) lost their £500 deposits after failing to win 5% of the vote.

This story was created using some automation.

A pharmacist from London has been selected to be Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Coventry North West.

It follows concerns voiced by retiring MP Geoffrey Robinson that the campaign to select a successor had been "shambolic and underhand".

He said some local party members were concerned a Labour candidate would be parachuted in from London.

Taiwo Owatemi beat local union rep Des Arthur in a vote on Saturday.

Unite union rep Zarah Sultana (pictured center in red), from Birmingham, was chosen by local party members to contest neighbouring Coventry South seat, held by 78-year-old MP Jim Cunningham for Labour since 1992.

Zarah Sultana

Nominations for the 12 December general election close on 14 November, after which a full list of candidates for other parties will be published on the BBC's Coventry North West and Coventry South constituency webpages.

The four people bidding to stand for the Labour party in the forthcoming general election in Coventry will know whether they've been successful by the end of the week.

Tomorrow, Labour members in Coventry South will choose between Neeraj Patil, a GP and former mayor of Lambeth, and Zarah Sultana, a West Midlands Labour party organiser.

BBC

On Saturday, Coventry North West members will get to choose between Des Arthur, a trade unionist and former Coventry postman and Taiwo Owatemi, a pharmacist from London.

They'll be standing in constituencies held by Labour MPs Jim Cunningham and Geoffrey Robinson, who have both decided not to stand again.

The government's bid to extract the UK from EU law in time for Brexit has passed its first parliamentary test.

MPs backed the EU Withdrawal Bill by 326 votes to 290 despite critics warning that it represented a "power grab" by ministers.

More than 100 MPs had their say during the two-day second reading debate, including Labour's MP for Coventry North West, Geoffrey Robinson, who was heavily critical of the bill.

HoC

Clearly the bill is full of faults, defects and inadequacies that have got to be put right. The government says to trust us - we'll put them right - and we will bring back and you will see at the end of the process we'll have a bill that will meet the needs of, and guarantee the support of the House. I say no to that."

Conservative Rashem Kotecha, who failed to take the Coventry North West seat said the fact Labour did better than expected in the election may be down to "shy Corbynites."

BBC

"We've had election after election, the UK, Trump Brexit where we've had results people weren't expecting," she said.

"We had shy Tories last time, maybe we had shy Corbynites this time... I don't know."