Sarah Pochin is the Reform UK MP for Runcorn and Helsby, having first been elected to parliament in a by-election on 1 May 2025.

At the May 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-elbection, Pochin received 12,645 votes, representing 38.7% of the total vote share. Karen Shore, the Labour candidate, placed second with 12,639 votes (38.7%), while the Conservative candidate, Sean Houlston, secured 2,341 votes (7.1%).

Pochin was duly elected with a majority of just 6 votes – the narrowest majority in a UK parliamentary by-election since World War II.

The Runcorn and Helsby constituency, located in Cheshire within North West England, was newly created ahead of the 2024 general election. Pochin’s immediate predecessor as the MP for Runcorn and Helsby was Mike Amesbury of the Labour Party. Amesbury represented the former Weaver Vale seat in parliament from 2017 to 2024 and Runcorn and Helsby from 2024 to 2025.

The 2025 by-election was triggered after Amesbury pleaded guilty in January to assaulting his constituent Paul Fellows, 45, after a row in the street in Frodsham, Cheshire on 26 October 2024.

Political Career

Pochin was the first woman to be elected to parliament as a Reform UK MP. She focused her by-election campaign on immigration, targeting asylum hotels, houses of multiple occupation and Turkish barbers.

In June 2025, during her first intervention at prime minister’s questions, Pochin called for the burka to be banned “in the interests of public safety”. The Reform UK chairman, Zia Yusuf, described the question as “dumb” on social media before resigning his position. Yusuf, a self-described “British Muslim patriot”, said he had “learnt about the question and the party’s position re: it not being policy for the first time on my X feed”.

Yusuf then announced his resignation, saying that working to get the party elected was no longer “a good use of my time”. However, mere days later, the former party chairman announced he would return to the political frontline to lead Reform’s “Doge team”.

In October 2025, Pochin issued an apology after stating during a TalkTV interview that television advertisements featuring Black and Asian people drove her “mad”. She admitted she had articulated her position regarding diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives poorly.

Pochin delivered her maiden speech on 12 May 2025 during a parliamentary debate concerning the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.

In it, she said: “May I start by saying how delighted I am that my colleagues have dragged themselves out of the pub to join me for my maiden speech? I am so proud to be in this place; I feel so privileged to be here…

“I hope that my background in the justice system will give substance to my contributions on subjects that are close to my heart, such as the current state of our prisons and the daily threat that our brave prison officers – men and women – face at work.”

She added: “To conclude, I thank [Nigel Farage] for his vision, his commitment and his conviction, which have brought a new voice to this Chamber. I will stand up for what is right, and I say to all my colleagues in this House that they will find me fair, principled and here to serve my constituents.”

Before her election to Westminster, Pochin held a varied career in local government. She served as a councillor on Cheshire East Council from 2015 to 2023, having first been elected as a Conservative.

Pochin served as the mayor of Cheshire East for the 2021-2022 term. However, her decision to accept the mayoral role from the governing Labour and independent administration in 2020 resulted in her expulsion from the local Conservative group. She subsequently sat as an independent member of the council.

In October 2022, Pochin was expelled from the council’s Independent Group after temporarily rejoining the Conservative Party to vote in that year’s summer leadership election.

Pochin previously stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate for the Bolton South East constituency in the 2017 general election, losing to the incumbent Labour MP, Yasmin Qureshi.

Political Views

Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party.

Brexit and Europe

Customs union vote (2025): In December 2025, Pochin voted against the UK-EU Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill. The bill, introduced under the 10-minute rule procedure by Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson Al Pinkerton, sought to mandate the government to enter into negotiations with the European Union to establish a bespoke customs union.

Assisted dying

Pochin voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at third reading (June 2025).

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Pochin voted against a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Before Politics

Sarah Joanne Hyde was born in Gloucestershire in June 1969. She attended Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls.

Pochin studied banking and finance at Loughborough University, graduating in 1991.

Pochin subsequently held positions at Shell International, Caradon Plc and Heywood Williams Plc.

Pochin also served for 20 years as a magistrate in the Chester and Crewe courts. She was reprimanded in 2018 by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) for misconduct during her tenure as a magistrate.

The JCIO found Pochin had used her status as a magistrate to influence the views held by her colleagues in a political context at a meeting.

The watchdog also found she breached confidentiality by publicising the complaint levelled against her, saying her “behaviour fell below the standards expected of a magistrate”.

Personal Life

Pochin married her husband, Jonathan Pochin, a businessman, in 1996. They have two sons.

Trivia

Pochin is the first non-Labour representative for Runcorn in more than 50 years.