Colum Eastwood is formally re-elected as Foyle MP to represent the people of Derry at the count centre in Magherafelt.
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00:00Candidates for the Hoyt constituency, if you'd join me on the stage, please.
00:04Candidates for the Hoyt constituency.
00:19Yes, Santa, how's it going?
01:30Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the declaration of the result of the UK Parliamentary Election
01:58vote of July 2024, constituency file.
02:02Candidates eligible elected 73,486.
02:08Votes polled 38,765.
02:12Valid votes 38,455.
02:16Rejected votes 310.
02:19Percentage turnout 52.74%.
02:26I, Adrian MacReach, as the Deputy Returning Officer for the Hoyt constituency, hereby
02:31declare that after the election, the number of votes for each candidate was as follows.
02:37John Hoy, M2 for Life, Unity and Economic Justice, 663.
02:44Sandra Buffett, 15, 11,400.
02:58Colin Eastwood, SDLP, Social Democratic and Labour Party, 15,647.
03:13Richard Lewis, Ferguson Alliance, 1,268.
03:28Sean Harkin, People Before Profit, 2,444.
03:41John McCluskey, Independent, 1,519.
03:50Gary Middleton, Democrat Unionist Party, DUP, 3,913.
04:01And finally, Janice Melissa Montgomery, Austin Unionist Party, 1,422.
04:13I hereby declare that Colin Eastwood has returned to serve in Parliament from the Hoyt constituency.
04:33First of all, I thank all of the staff who have been involved in this election.
04:43I know how long you've been working, many of them from yesterday morning at seven o'clock.
04:49It doesn't go unnoticed.
04:51I also want to pay tribute to all the other candidates.
04:55It was a good, clean fight.
04:58It came on us very quickly.
05:01Politics is very difficult.
05:03Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't win.
05:05I've been on both sides of that argument.
05:08But the most important thing is that we have a democratic process for people to take part in
05:12without fear of intimidation and violence.
05:15And I take my hat off to everybody who's put their name on a ballot paper in this election.
05:20I want to thank my long-time friend, mentor, and election aide, John Keery.
05:31I want to thank my campaign manager, Brian Keery.
05:35I call him Keery today.
05:37And I thank all of my staff and all the volunteers who've given an enormous amount of effort
05:44over the past six weeks.
05:46The six-month plan for this election, which ended up having to become a six-week plan,
05:51meant a serious effort by people who knocked on the gate,
05:55other than a commitment to a cause and a commitment to their city.
05:59I'm very grateful to every last one of them.
06:02I'm very grateful, mostly, to the people of Derry,
06:07who have once again said that they want their voice to be heard in Westminster.
06:12I will gladly continue to be your voice.
06:16I will stand up for the people of our city, of our constituency.
06:20We won't be quiet.
06:22I have to say I'm delighted to see the back of the Tory government.
06:26Fourteen years of destroying our public services.
06:29Fourteen years of destroying the economy.
06:32Destroying our family finances.
06:34It's now gone.
06:36We're delighted that it's happened.
06:38We also know that we're going to have to be there to hold the Labour government's feet to the fire.
06:43We made some promises to this place.
06:45We made a promise to scrap the Legacy Act.
06:47That needs to happen immediately.
06:49We made a promise to recognise the state of Palestine.
06:52That needs to happen.
06:58And we need to see our public bodies, our public finances, put back into decent shape.
07:04Far too many of our people are languishing, but I hope this does not lead to an end.
07:10On that, I just want to say, let's get to work.
07:14Thank you.
07:34We can all breathe.