Constituency: Barrow and Furness (including Broughton, Crake Valley, Low Furness & Swarthmoor, Ulverston, Barrow-in- Furness district)

Population: 88,111

Electorate: 70,877

Breakdown: Skilled trades make up over 16.3 per cent of the workforce, with 14.7 per cent employed in the professional sector. The unemployment level is 5.2 per cent, above the national average.

Key industries/employers: Submarine builder BAE is a major employer but the town also benefits from the renewable energy industry.

Issues likely to be key to voters' decision: the future of the town’s shipbuilding industry, the future of Furness Hospital.

Sitting candidate: John Woodcock (Lab).
Woodcock has distanced himself from Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Trident stance, but with a wafer-thin majority to defend he could be a high-profile casualty in June.

Other candidates:
Simon Fell (Con); Loraine Birchall (Lib Dem); Rob O'Hara (Green); Alan Nigel Piper (UKIP)

2015 figures:
Labour (18,320, 42.3%), Conservative (17,525, 40.5%), UKIP (5,070, 11.7%), Lib Dem (1,169, 2.7%), Greens (1,061, 2.5%). Turnout 63.3%

Conservatives target seat: No 9 (0.92% swing required)

Previous holders of the seat for the last four general elections:

  • 2001: John Hutton (Lab), majority 9,889
  • 2005: John Hutton (Lab), majority 6,037
  • 2010: John Woodcock (Lab), majority 5,208
  • 2015: John Woodcock (Lab), majority 795

How constituency voted in Brexit referendum:

  • Remain: 14,207
  • Leave: 21,867

Analysis:
“You have put your faith in me – I won’t let you down.”
John Woodcock’s victory speech, having been re-elected MP for Barrow and Furness in 2015, was that of a relieved man.
For while the area’s traditionally Labour-supporting constituents had indeed backed their man, it had been an agonisingly close-run thing.
Woodcock’s majority had been slashed from over 5,000 in 2010 to barely 800, following a fractious campaign dominated by the future of Barrow’s nuclear submarine manufacturing industry.
Woodcock had lobbied vociferously for Barrow to be awarded the contract to build four Successor-class subs, armed with Trident missiles. But he blamed fears of Ed Miliband’s potential alliance with the anti-Trident SNP for almost costing him his seat.
This time the issue is even more clear cut. Jeremy Corbyn has made no bones about his opposition to Trident.
Woodcock has been just as vociferous in his opposition to Corbyn but in a town whose economy is heavily dependent on submarine building the prospect of a Labour government, however remote, is making voters understandably jittery.
And when it comes to safeguarding their jobs, the people of Barrow have proved pragmatic in the past.
The last time a Labour leader proposed unilateral disarmament – Michael Foot in the 1983 election campaign - it led to a Conservative MP representing the constituency for the next nine years.
Hardly surprising, then, that the Barrow and Furness seat is ninth on the Conservatives’ list of target seats on June 8.