The British Labour party has suffered a humiliating by-election defeat after losing a seat it has held since the 1980s to the Conservatives.

The Cumbrian seat has been held by the party since it was formed in 1983 but Tory Trudy Harrison won it by 2,147 votes in a historic victory.

It is the first time a governing party has taken a seat from the opposition for decades.

Ms Harrison polled 13,748 votes to 11,601 for Labour's Gillian Troughton.

The stunning Tory victory will heap pressure on Jeremy Corbyn over his divisive leadership of the party.

Labour's majority in the constituency at the general election was just 2,564.

But for an opposition party to lose a seat to the party of power in a mid-term vote is extremely rare.

The last time it happened was the 1982 Merton, Mitcham and Morden by-election, although technically it was a Conservative gain from SDP as the sitting MP had defected from Labour to the SDP before the poll.

Before that, the closest comparable case was Sunderland South in 1953.

Labour earlier held Stoke-on-Trent Central after seeing off a concerted challenge from Ukip leader Paul Nuttall.

But Mr Corbyn admitted the party had failed to get its message through in Cumbria.

He said: "Labour's victory in Stoke is a decisive rejection of Ukip's politics of division and dishonesty.

"But our message was not enough to win through in Copeland.

"In both campaigns, Labour listened to thousands of voters on the doorstep.

"Both constituencies, like so many in Britain, have been let down by the political establishment.

"To win power to rebuild and transform Britain, Labour will go further to reconnect with voters and break with the failed political consensus."

The Conservatives increased their vote share by more than 8% in Copeland, while Labour's was down by nearly 5%.

Ms Harrison said her victory showed "the people are ready for change".

She told Sky News: "I think we ran an extremely positive campaign and it was a campaign that represented the needs of this area.

"And I know this area because I have lived here all of my life.

"I think that, and the combination of Jeremy Corbyn's views on nuclear in an area which is so dependent on Sellafield and on Moorside, contributed to my win tonight."

In Stoke, Gareth Snell secured a comfortable win of 7,853 to his challenger's 5,233, to be elected as the city's new MP.

Ukip campaigned hard in the constituency in the hope of capitalising on its overwhelming support for Brexit.

But Mr Nuttall's campaign was hit by a series of setbacks, including being forced to apologise for a false claim on his website that he lost "close friends" in the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Snell also faced a rocky campaign after it emerged he had described Jeremy Corbyn as an "IRA-supporting friend of Hamas" and called Brexit a "massive pile of s**t".

But the seat has been held by Labour since it was created in 1950 and the party secured a 5,179 majority in 2015.

Labour secured a 2,620 majority but its vote share fell by around 2%, while Ukip's went up by the same amount.

Mr Nuttall said Ukip was "not going anywhere" and insisted the party's "time would come".

"There's a lot more to come from us," he said.

"We are not going anywhere, I'm not going anywhere."