Ukip’s new leader, Paul Nuttall, is set to fight the Stoke Central byelection, party sources have confirmed – making the poll a key test of electoral support for the man seeking to escape the shadow of Nigel Farage.

The vote to replace the departing Labour MP, Tristram Hunt, is to take place on 23 February, the same day as a byelection in Copeland, which was prompted by the resignation of another Labour MP, Jamie Reed.



Nuttall had decided to gamble on the Stoke seat, held by Hunt at the 2015 election with a majority of just over 5,500, several senior Ukip sources said. Ukip came second then, narrowly ahead of the Conservatives. The area voted strongly to leave the EU in last June’s referendum.

The sources said Nuttall had put up his name for selection and was widely expected to be chosen. Following a closed hustings in Stoke on Friday evening, Ukip’s national executive will have the final say on who stands. A formal announcement is expected on Saturday morning.

Nuttall became leader in November, with a stated intention to seek support from former Labour voters and move the party on from the long dominance of Farage. He replaced Diane James, who lasted just 18 days in the post.

One party source said Nuttall took time to decide whether he should stand, with one concern being whether his name on the ballot paper could focus anti-Ukip forces and harm the party’s chances in what is not considered one of its key target seats.

Labour sources said one reason for picking February dates for the byelections was in anticipation of Nuttall standing, as Labour hoped a short campaign would give him less chance to establish himself.



“As far as most regular voters are concerned, they don’t know who Paul Nuttall is,” one Labour source said. “It’s not much time to get himself established, he’s not local, he doesn’t live there. If they delayed the byelection until May, locals would have months to get to know him, so very sensibly the party has decided to do it quicker.”



The announcement came shortly after it was revealed that local Labour members had rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred choice as candidate for Copeland.

Local activists chose a former doctor, Gillian Troughton, who backed the failed leadership challenger Owen Smith last summer, which will be seen as a victory for Labour moderates. The leadership is understood to have preferred Rachel Holliday, a homelessness campaigner and vocal Corbyn supporter who had only recently joined the party.

Troughton faces a tough battle in the west Cumbrian seat, where Labour’s majority over the Conservatives was cut to 2,564 at the last general election. Reed announced last month that he was standing down to take up a position at the Sellafield nuclear plant in the constituency.

Reed and Hunt, who will leave to become director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, will formally resign as MPs on Friday. Labour intends to move the writ in the Commons on Monday to set the date for both Stoke Central and Copeland byelections for a polling day within a month.

The NEC picked an all-female shortlist ahead of the Copeland hustings on Thursday night, which meant the former Labour MP Thomas Docherty and Tim Knowles, a well-known Cumbria county councillor, were not on the list.

Troughton was one of 1,000 councillors who signed a declaration of support for Smith during his failed leadership campaign.

Holliday, a local Unite activist, was named Cumbria’s woman of the year in 2015. She founded Time to Change in west Cumbria, a social enterprise that tackles homelessness, and Calderwood House, a hostel for the homeless.

Local members, however, are understood to have been uneasy about her lack of political experience, having only joined the party in 2015.

In a statement welcoming her selection, Corbyn said: “Gillian is a local councillor with a strong track record of getting things done for her community. She has campaigned tirelessly to maintain local hospital services. As a St John blue light ambulance driver, Gillian has seen first-hand the extent of the crisis caused by this Conservative government, which has chosen to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest instead of our health service.”

A Conservative spokesman said the selection was a “victory for the hard left”, adding: “It is clear Gillian Troughton is nothing more than a Corbyn puppet in a Labour party that is too divided and incompetent to stand up and secure the future of Cumbria’s industry and jobs.”

The Tories have not yet chosen their candidate for the constituency, but local activists say they were planning “the biggest campaigning day the party has ever held in Cumbria” on Saturday. The Lib Dems have chosen the west Cumbrian councillor Rebecca Hanson to stand.

Labour has imposed a tight timetable for the selection for the Stoke byelection, with candidates shortlisted by Tuesday by an NEC panel including the chair, Glenis Willmott, the MP Keith Vaz, Unison’s Keith Birch and the constituency rep and Momentum activist Rhea Wolfson. The final candidate will be selected at a hustings on Wednesday.



