The seat covers Ilford town centre and the surrounding suburbs, and the housing is predominantly semi-detached with little high-rise development. There is significant commuting to central London via the four stations on the Elizabeth line. The seat is ethnically diverse including white, black and Asian communities.[2]
This constituency was created in 1945. The previous MP since 1992, Mike Gapes, who before defecting to Change UK, was the fourth Labour Party MP, each of whose tenures was interspersed or preceded by one of a Conservative MP serving the area. Regarded as a key marginal seat for decades, under Gapes's tenure Ilford South became a very safe seat for the Labour Party; in every election since 1997 it has been won by a majority of over 20% by Labour, and in 2017 they secured over 75% of the vote in the constituency.
The 2015 result made the seat the 38th safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.[4] The narrowest result since 1997 (inclusive) was in 2005 at a majority of 21.6%; the 2017 majority is the greatest ever achieved in the seat, at 54.9%.
Boundaries
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Ilford South in Essex, showing boundaries used from 1945 to 1950
Map of boundaries 2010–2024
1945–1950: The Borough of Ilford wards of Clementswood, Cranbrook, Goodmayes, Loxford, and Park.
1950–1974: The Borough of Ilford wards of Clementswood, Cranbrook, Goodmayes, Loxford, Mayfield, and Park.
1974–1983: The London Borough of Redbridge wards of Clementswood, Cranbrook, Goodmayes, Ilford, Mayfield, and Park.
1983–1997: As above substituting Ilford and Park with reshaped wards Loxford, Newbury, and Valentines.
1997–2024: As above plus Chadwell and Seven Kings wards.
2024–present: The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham ward of Chadwell Heath, and the London Borough of Redbridge wards of Chadwell, Clementswood, Goodmayes, Ilford Town, Loxford, Mayfield, Newbury, and Seven Kings.[5]
^"The 2023 Review of Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries in England – Volume two: Constituency names, designations and composition – London". Boundary Commission for England. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
^"UK POLLING REPORT survey and polling news from YouGov's Anthony Wells". Archived from the original on 6 August 2022.
^Population by detailed ethnic group in Ilford South https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/topic/home-affairs/communities/demography/census/
^"Labour Members of Parliament 2015". UK Political.info. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018.
^"The Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023". Schedule 1 Part 3 London region.
^Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "I"
^"STATEMENT OF PERSONS NOMINATED, NOTICE OF POLL AND SITUATION OF POLLING STATIONS" (PDF). Redbridge Council. Retrieved 9 June 2024.
^"Ilford South – General election results 2024". BBC News. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
^"Notional results for a UK general election on 12 December 2019". Rallings & Thrasher, Professor David Denver (Scotland), Nicholas Whyte (NI) for Sky News, PA, BBC News and ITV News. UK Parliament. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
^"Ilford South Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
^Statement of Persons Nominated and Notice of Poll Archived 15 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine London Borough of Redbridge
^"Ilford South parliamentary constituency". BBC News.
^"General Election 2017: results and analysis" (PDF). House of Commons Library. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
^"Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.