Stella Creasy Wins Her Seat With Her New-Born Baby Sleeping In A Sling

‘Stella Creasy's baby is the most wholesome thing I'm going to see this evening,’ one Twitter user commented.

Stella Creasy

by Georgia Aspinall |
Updated on

Stella Creasy has been re-elected to her constituency Walthamstow seat by a landslide, attending her victory count with her new-born baby sleeping in a sling across her chest. Her decision to appear at the celebration with her baby has been praised online.

Creasy, who won 35,784 votes in her constituency, gave birth to her daughter Hettie two weeks ago. She was the first MP to be given maternity leave and has secured huge wins for women’s rights as the original leader of cross-party calls for Northern Ireland’s abortion laws to be brought in line with the rest of the UK.

‘Walthamstow is not Gilead. Those candidates who spread lies are not welcome,’ she said during her victory speech. ‘I pledge to work hard to rebuild trust. I have been in the Labour movement for 27 years through ups and downs. Tonight is a down. My heart is breaking.’

Stella Creasy
©Getty Images

She later told Sky News that she had no choice but to bring her daughter with her to the count. ‘[My daughter] started heckling me during my speech but I couldn’t really leave her at home,’ Creasy said. ‘I can’t pretend what is happening across the rest of the country isn’t devastating. I am gutted to see very good colleagues, very passionate colleagues, not being returned to parliament.’

Fans on Twitter praised Creasy for bringing her daughter, saying it was one of very few things to celebrate from this election.

‘Trying to look for something positive on what has been a very bleak night,’ one user said. ‘Great to see Stella Creasy being interviewed with her two-week-old baby, having been re-elected as an MP.’

‘Stella Creasy's baby is the most wholesome thing I'm going to see this evening,’ another added.

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CREDIT: Twitter Danielle Rowley

Danielle Rowley, 28, Midlothian Scottish Labour MP

Speaking about her groundbreaking announcement, Danielle perfectly highlighted just how ridiculous it is that it's even a taboo to mention your period. She said on Twitter:'A lot of unexpected coverage of me talking about my period - which is great, but also highlights the need to talk about periods more openly.A woman mentioning her period shouldn't be such huge news - let's use this opportunity and work together to get to a place where it's not!'

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Jess Phillips, 36, Birmingham Yardley Labour MP

Jess brought social media trolls to account when she called for those who post abusive messages online to lose their anonymity. The MP told parliament that she once received 600 rape threats in one night and is threatened with violence and aggression every single day online. The online community is so hostile towards women that Amnesty International have led a campaign calling for Twitter to take greater responsibility for preventing online abuse. Jess told the House of Commons that people should have to disclose their real identity to social media platforms, with hope that it would not only deter people from abusing women online but also enable us to hold them to account.

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Heidi Allen, 43, South Cambridgeshire Conservative MP

Heidi, alongside Jess Phillips, shared an emotional account of her own abortion with parliament earlier this month. In an attempt to reform Northern Ireland's abortion laws, she told the Cambridge independent that she felt she needed to share her story:'I had intended to say it because I had a feeling nobody else would.'I thought it probably needed saying.'I suppose it is very easy to make issues like that just about procedure and legislation and words and policy but, actually, it is about people's lives.'Jess Phillips too opened up about her own abortion, also sharing harrowing stories from women in Northern Ireland who had terminated pregnancies.

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Stella Creasy, 41, Walthamstow Labour MP

The original lead of cross-party calls for Northern Ireland's abortion laws to be brought in line with the rest of the UK's, Stella received tons of hate mail over her campaign to protect women's right to choose. It was in her call for debate over abortion that Heidi Allen and Jess Philips were able to talk about their own terminations.

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Penny Mourdant, 45, Portsmouth North Conservative MP

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Wera Hobhouse, 58, Bath Liberal Democrat MP

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Maria Miller, 54, Basingstoke Conservative MP

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Mhairi Black, Paisley and Renfrewshire South SNP MP

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Melanie Onn, 39, Great Grimsby Labour MP

Leading the charge to make misogyny a hate crime, Melanie highlighted the 'link between low-level harassment of women and more serious sexual assaults' that was found by Westminster's all-party group on domestic violence. In her constituency, the rate of domestic violence is particularly high. As a result, she has called for a law change to have misogynistic acts such as wolf-whistling, leering and sexual comments in public to be made a criminal offence.

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Monica Lennon, 37, Central Scotland Scottish Labour MSP

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