2016 Witney by-election 2016 Witney by-election The Witney by-election was a UK parliamentary by-election held on 20 October 2016 in the constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire. It took place on the same day as the Batley and Spen by-election. They were the fifth and sixth by-elections of the 56th UK Parliament. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) David Cameron on 12 September 2016. The election was won by Conservative Robert Courts with a reduced majority, and the Liberal Democrats came in second with an increase in vote share of 23.4 percentage points. David Cameron had
David Cameron biographers Francis Elliott and James Hanning describe the two men as being "on fairly friendly terms". Cameron, advised in his strategy by friend Catherine Fall, put a great deal of effort into "nursing" his potential constituency, turning up at social functions, and attacking Woodward for changing his mind on fox hunting to support a ban. During the election campaign, Cameron accepted the offer of writing a regular column for "The Guardian"s online section. He won the seat with a 1.9% swing to the Conservatives, taking 22,153 votes (45%) to Labour candidate Michael Bartlet's 14,180 (28.8%), a majority of 7,973 (16.2%).