Islington South and Finsbury

Islington South and Finsbury is an urban constituency in Greater London, located around 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the centre of London. The constituency contains the Borough of Islington neighbourhoods of Islington, Barnsbury, Pentonville, Clerkenwell, Finsbury and parts of Holloway, and parts of Dalston in the neighbouring Borough of Hackney. This inner-city constituency is densely-populated and contains many Georgian townhouses. Islington was described in The Guardian as being "the spiritual home of Britain's left-wing intelligentsia".^[2] The constituency has average levels of wealth and deprivation, with some 20th-century social housing developments.^[3] House prices in the constituency are higher than the rest of London and almost three times the national average.^[4]

Residents of the constituency are very young and well-educated compared to the rest of the country. They are unlikely to be married and have low rates of homeownership.^[4] A high proportion of residents work in professional, scientific or technological occupations.^[5] White people made up 62% of the population at the 2021 census, a higher percentage than London as a whole. Around one-third of the White population are of non-British origin, including large Irish and American communities. Black people were the largest ethnic minority group at 12% and Asians were 11%.^[6] At the local borough council, all seats in the constituency are represented by Labour Party councillors. Voters in the constituency overwhelmingly supported remaining in the European Union in the 2016 referendum; an estimated 73% voted to remain compared to the nationwide figure of 48%, making Islington South and Finsbury one of the top-25 most Remain-supporting constituencies out of 650 across the United Kingdom.^[4]

Islington South and Finsbury was created in 1974 from part of the former Islington South West and Shoreditch and Finsbury constituencies. In 1983, its boundaries changed when the Islington Central constituency was abolished and its area split between Islington South and Finsbury and Islington North.

Islington was an early stronghold for the SDP. All three sitting Labour MPs defected to the party together with a majority of the borough council. This was at the time when the Labour Party voted for in Conference leaving the European Economic Community (Common Market) and abolishing nuclear weapons during the Cold War which largely triggered the split. However, in spite of their less radical position than the Labour Party, they won only one seat to Labour's 59 in the 1982 Islington Council elections^[8] and at the 1983 general election, Labour managed to narrowly retain the seat. The new MP, Chris Smith was the first MP to come out as gay and was aligned with the Labour left, and retained the seat with a slight increase in his majority in 1987. By 1992, the post-merged SDP, the Liberal Democrats, had faded locally, and no longer had the former MP as a candidate, and Smith managed to win a majority exceeding 10,000 votes.

The Liberal Democrat revival in local elections in Islington, which saw them take control of the council in 2000, began to cross over to Parliamentary elections in 2001. In 2002, the Liberal Democrats won every council seat in Islington South and Finsbury, and Smith's subsequent retirement and the resultant loss of incumbency made the constituency vulnerable once again in 2005. However Smith's successor, Emily Thornberry, retained the seat with a narrow majority of 484 votes over the Liberal Democrat challenger, Barnsbury councillor Bridget Fox.^[9] — the seat therefore became one of the ten most marginal in Britain. However, in the local council elections a year later, Labour made an almost full recovery locally and won a majority of the seats in Islington South and Finsbury, defeating both Bridget Fox and the-then council leader Steve Hitchins.^[10] At the 2010 general election, Thornberry increased her majority over Fox. In 2014 the Liberal Democrats lost all their remaining seats on the council. The 2015 general election result made the seat the 93rd safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.^[11]

• Parliamentary constituencies in London
• List of parliamentary constituencies in Islington