Patrick Hurley was elected Labour MP for Southport on 4 July 2024 with 17,252 votes (38.5 percent) and a majority of 5,789 (12.9 percent), becoming the first Labour MP for Southport in the constituency's history. Twenty five days later, three children were murdered at a Taylor Swift themed dance class on Hart Street and his constituency became the centre of a national crisis. No first term MP in modern British history has faced anything comparable within their first month.

Born August 1976 in Prescot, a self described "working class bloke" and former call centre worker, he spent twelve years as a Liverpool city councillor for Mossley Hill (2011-2023) before losing his seat in 2023 and working with community groups and non profits across the north of England, an unusual trajectory into a parliamentary win the following year.

Southport was not a Labour constituency before 2024. It was represented by Liberal Democrat John Pugh from 2001 to 2017, then by Conservative Damien Moore from 2017 to 2024. Moore has since defected to Reform UK in 2026. The seat has changed from Liberal Democrat to Conservative to Labour in seven years, and its former Conservative MP has left that party entirely. Southport is not settling. It is still moving.

The Southport stabbings on 29 July 2024 killed three girls, Bebe King (age 6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (age 7) and Alice Dasilva Aguiar (age 9), and injured ten others at a yoga and dance workshop. Axel Rudakubana (age 17) was arrested at the scene and later sentenced to a minimum of 52 years. The following day, rioters attacked a mosque in Southport after misinformation about the attacker's identity was spread online. The violence spread nationwide over the following days, becoming the 2024 UK riots. Hurley was 25 days into the job. He condemned the violence, separated the town's grief from the rioters exploiting it, and called out the disinformation. His membership of the Grief Support and the Impact of Death on Society APPG reflects the mark this left on his political identity.

Since the crisis he has focused on specific constituency delivery: campaigning to restore Southport Pier, revitalising Town Hall Gardens, campaigning for the return of Children's A&E services, tackling coastal pollution, launching a "Southport Matters" community engagement programme, and supporting the Southport 2026 cultural programme.

He has voted in 484 divisions with two whipped rebellions, both on the Crime and Policing Bill in June 2025. Reform UK took 7,395 votes (16.5 percent) in 2024.

Hurley's strengths include 12 years of council experience, a genuine working class background starting from call centre work, composure under the most extreme constituency crisis any new MP has faced, specific local delivery commitments already in progress, and a 12.9 percent majority that is larger than it felt on election night. His weaknesses include no ministerial office, no select committee appointment, no legislative achievement of his own, and a constituency that has changed hands three times in seven years and whose former Conservative MP has defected to Reform. At 49, he has time to build the record. The stabbings response proved his judgement. What remains is whether the constituency delivery matches it.