Blackburn was first enfranchised by the
Reform Act 1832, as a two-member constituency, and was first used at the
1832 general election. It was abolished for the
1950 general election, replaced by two single member constituencies,
Blackburn East and
Blackburn West. Blackburn was re-established as a single-member constituency for the
1955 general election, partially replacing Blackburn East and Blackburn West. After its re-establishment, the constituency was initially a marginal, but Blackburn was later considered to be a
Labour Party stronghold prior to the
2024 general election—up until that point, it had only elected Labour MPs since its recreation in 1955. In 2024 Blackburn was won by
Adnan Hussain, an independent candidate who campaigned largely on the issue of the
genocide of Palestinians during the
Gaza war. Three other previously safe Labour seats saw similar results at that election, all of which had large
Muslim populations. The constituency of Blackburn has been represented by two prominent frontbenchers in the Cabinet:
Barbara Castle, a
First Secretary of State (amongst other roles) who stood down from this seat to become a
Member of the European Parliament, and
Jack Straw, who served as
Home Secretary and then
Foreign Secretary in the
Blair government.
1997 general election Jack Straw's
Conservative challenger in the
1997 general election, Geeta Sidhu-Robb, was filmed with a megaphone during the election campaign, exclaiming in
Urdu or
Gujarati: "Don't vote for a Jew, Jack Straw is a Jew. If you vote for him, you're voting for a Jew. Jews are the enemies of Muslims." Sidhu-Robb said that this was in response to racist campaigning by the Labour Party, who she accused of claiming that she was "against Islam". She felt that Labour were "making it personal", and she took particular umbrage as her husband was
Muslim. Sidhu-Robb later said she wished she had not made those comments about Straw, saying she did so because she was "furious" and that she "didn't want racism and bigotry to play a part in anything that [she] had anything to do with." Nonetheless, her comments regarding Straw's religion resurfaced over 20 years later, when Sidhu-Robb was competing to be nominated as the
Liberal Democrat candidate in the
2021 London Mayoral election, causing the Liberal Democrats to remove her from consideration for their candidacy.
2005 general election Blackburn's then MP, Straw, was primarily challenged in the
2005 general election by the
Conservative Party, but the former British ambassador to
Uzbekistan,
Craig Murray, also stood for election in the seat as an
Independent. Murray said: "I've been approached by several people in the Asian community who are under huge pressure from Labour activists [talking up the
BNP's chances] to apply for a
postal vote rather than a ballot vote and then hand their postal vote over to the Labour party." Over 50% more people used postal votes in the 2005 general election in Blackburn than in 2001. The BNP had not stood in the previous two elections, but this time had a candidate, who polled 5.4% of the vote, and beat Murray to come fourth. Both were outperformed by the
Liberal Democrats in third place, and the
Conservatives, who remained second. Straw held on comfortably, albeit with a reduced majority; his winning vote share of 42% was the smallest since the seat became a single-member constituency until the 2024 result.
2015 general election In August 2011, Jack Straw claimed that he had no plans to retire, despite turning 65 earlier that month. Two years later, on 25 October 2013, Straw announced that he would stand down as Blackburn's MP at the next election. In March 2014,
Kate Hollern was selected, via an
all women shortlist, as the candidate for Labour for the
2015 general election, and held the seat. ==Members of Parliament==