A trade unionist and LGBT campaigner has been selected for an Essex target seat to take on a Tory former banker.

Ashley Dalton was chosen to fight Rochford and Southend East, the seat in which she stood in June, when she slashed the majority of James Duddridge.

Dalton, a council officer, is a member of the executive of LGBT Labour and a volunteer with Macmillan Cancer Support as well as being a member of Unison.

At the last election she cut Duddridge’s majority to 5,548 from nearly 10,000.

After being put back in as the candidate, she wrote on Twitter: “So proud to have been selected again as Labour’s candidate for my home seat of Rochford and Southend East. Let’s finish what we started and turn this seat red.”

Duddridge spent 10 years working for Barclays and rose to run the bank’s operations in Botswana.