Joan Ryan, the new MP for Enfield North, said it was “good to be back”
A delighted Joan Ryan marked her return to parliament with five short words: “It’s good to be back”.
The newly-elected Labour MP for Enfield North, who had previously represented the constituency for 13 years until she was ousted in 2010, defeated her Conservative rival Nick de Bois by more than a thousand votes.
After winning a seat that is home to more Turkish, Turkish Cypriots and Kurdish people than any other seat in the country, Ms Ryan said she always felt she could win.
Nick de Bois
‘I CAN’T THANK THEM ENOUGH’
She told Londra Gazete: “Certainly the Turkish families and the Turkish community [were] just completely supportive and positive, really fantastic. I can’t thank them enough. I intend to work very hard for all the communities in Enfield North because I think we got support from across the board.
“But I do have a relationship with the Turkish community, I had a really warm, supportive relationship with them, and I look forward to working closely with them as we go forward.”
Asked about her campaign promises to visit Cyprus to meet Turkish and Greek leaders there, she said: “I’m going to be looking tomorrow and in the days following this election, I’m going to be sitting with the people I work with and people who’ve been helping me throughout the campaign and just thinking what are priorities for the next few weeks and months.”
She won 20,172 votes against her Conservative rival Nick de Bois, MP for the last five years, who missed a second term by winning 19,086 votes.
In his concession speech Mr de Bois said he was proud to have served Enfield North for five years.
He said: “I am also proud that over the last five years that we have delivered changes on issues that have such significant impact on the lives of people, not least when we came to office in 2010 we had the tragedy of young people killing each other on our streets with knives.
“I’ll always be proud of the campaigners in Enfield, of the newspapers who got behind us, that uniquely allowed us to introduce what became known as Enfield’s law, mandatory jail sentences for those foolish to carry a knife for the second time.”
There were seven candidates in Enfield North. The third placed candidate was UKIP’s Deborah Cairns, who took 4113 votes, followed by David Flint (Green) with 1303, the Liberal Democrat Cara Jenkinson on 1059, Yemi Awolola from the Christian People’s Alliance on 207 and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate Joe Simpson with 177.
RESULTS
Joan Ryan Labour 20,172
Nick de Bois Conservative 19,086
Deborah Cairns UKIP 4,133
David Flint Green 1,303
Cara Jenkinson Liberal Democrat 1,059
Yemi Awolola Christian Peoples 207
Joe Simpson TUSC 177
