Castle Point (constituency)

The seat is located in Essex and is mostly coterminous with the Castle Point local authority area, which takes its name from Hadleigh Castle and Canvey Point. The constituency's largest town is Canvey Island with a population of around 38,000.^[3] It also includes the towns of South Benfleet, Thundersley and Hadleigh. Canvey Island was a popular seaside resort but, like many coastal towns in England, has experienced economic decline in recent decades.^[4] The town is an important centre for the petrochemical industry.^[5][6] Canvey Island has high levels of deprivation whilst the mainland areas are generally affluent.^[7]

Compared to national averages, residents of Castle Point are older, have similar levels of income and professional employment and high levels of homeownership.^[8] The constituency has one of the lowest proportions of university graduates of any constituency in the country.^[9] White people make up 95% of the population.^[8] At the local council level, there is wide support for independent politicians; the Castle Point Borough Council is entirely made up of councillors from two independent groupings (PIP and CIIP). Voters in the constituency overwhelmingly supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum. An estimated 73% voted in favour of Brexit, making Castle Point one of the top five most Brexit-supporting constituencies out of 650 nationwide.^[8]

This seat was created for the 1983 general election from the former seat of South East Essex. It comprised the district of Castle Point which was formed from the former Urban Districts of Canvey Island and Benfleet and includes Canvey Island, Hadleigh, South Benfleet, and Thundersley.

In all but one election, it has been won by a Conservative candidate, passing to Labour once, in the 1997 election. The former MP defeated in 1997, Bob Spink, regained the seat in 2001. He was re-elected in 2005 but subsequently resigned from the Conservative Party on 22 April 2008. Spink briefly joined UKIP,^[10] but resigned the whip shortly afterwards and sat as an Independent MP.^[11] In the 2010 election, Spink lost in Castle Point to the Conservative candidate, Rebecca Harris.

At the 2017 election Castle Point had the largest Conservative majority, at 42.2%, of any constituency to have elected a Labour MP in the 1997–2010 government. This was increased even further, to 60.1%, at the 2019 election. In 2024, the Conservative vote was more than halved with Reform UK taking over 30%, reducing the majority to just 8%.

• parliamentary constituencies in Essex