Bermondsey and Old Southwark is a constituency of two halves. The affluent South Bank of the Thames that stretches its way from Waterloo in the west to Surrey Quays in the West, taking up glassy skyscrapers and hip art galleries. And then its inner city heart, south London through and through, low income and ethnically diverse. The seat’s politics perfectly reflects this split, making it all to play for in the next election.

About the Area

The major parts of this seat are the urban neighbourhoods of Southwark, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Elephant and Castle. The area is almost completely urban sprawl but is broken up by some green areas such as Burgess Park. The area started off as a tidal marsh south of the actual City of London. By the middle ages though it had been mostly drained and settled as a market town between the rural Kent and Surrey, ad the capital over the river. The area was renowned for its entertainment industry in the form of taverns, playhouses and eventually Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The area rapidly urbanised in the indistrial revolution with important rail routes and the docks in Rotherhithe. After the Second World War, the population continued to grow with waves immigrants from France, West Africa and The Caribbean, giving it it a rich diverse culture. It’s only in the recent decades that the riverside has had wealthy development and gentrification.

Politics

The Constituency has long been a tug of war between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The Liberals originally took power here due to a local Labour civil war between the left and the centre of the party. But Simon Hughes was a popular Member of Parliament and so he stayed in control until the Liberal Democrat collapse in 2015. Neil Coyle from Labour took control then. As the rest of central London, the seat voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU and due to this it has the potential to be a Lib Dem gain in the next General Election.

Member of Parliament

Neil Coyle can be seen as an average Labour MP from its moderate social democratic wing. He has hardly ever rebelled the whip and voted for a variety of policies to extend benefits to the ill and disabled. This seems to be his main area of interest as he was a member of the Work and Pensions Committee and is a national policy and campaigns adviser on social care and tackling poverty. Coyle has taken a very pro-Europe stance, voting for more integration and rebelling the Labour line on brexit related matters.