2007 Sedgefield by-election 2007 Sedgefield by-election The Sedgefield by-election, 2007 was a by-election held on 19 July 2007 for the British House of Commons constituency of Sedgefield in County Durham. The Ealing Southall by-election was also held on 19 July. The by-election was triggered when Tony Blair, the Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield and former Prime Minister, "resigned" to become envoy for the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East. To resign as an MP, Blair accepted the office of Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, thereby deliberately disqualifying himself from Parliament and causing the by-election. Blair
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (UK Parliament constituency) The first Member of Parliament after the seat's creation in 2005, was the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Gordon Brown; who had previously represented Dunfermline East from 1983 to 2005, and would later succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 2007. At the general election of 2010, Brown was re-elected as an MP, but was defeated as Prime Minister, and soon resigned as Leader of the Labour Party. He announced that he would continue to serve as an Opposition backbencher, and did not retire from the Commons until the 2015 election, which he did not contest. On that