Defeated Labour candidates in Cumbria have shared their views on what went wrong for their party, after a General Election wipeout in the county.

The Labour Party, once able to count on much of Cumbria for unwavering support at the ballot box, now has no MPs in the county.

Ruth Alcroft, the party’s Carlisle candidate who saw her Tory opposite John Stevenson increase his majority on Thursday to more than 8,000, said “people are starting to get their heads round what happened”.

Mrs Alcroft said despite national media explaining away Labour’s defeat - particularly in the north - as a combination of “Corbyn and Brexit”, there was a deeper issue rooted in a disconnect between the party locally and the party nationally.

“I think the Labour Party in Westminster has lost a connection with our communities,” she said.

“We in Carlisle are a long way from London, and perhaps too far away to feed into the national conversation on policy.”

Mrs Alcroft said Labour councillors such as herself need to be listened to closely by her party at the highest possible level, because they are the ones closest to the communities Labour needs to understand how to better represent.

“The Labour Party needs to listen to what people want.

“I think we do it well on a local level, but it obviously hasn’t worked on a national level.

“Labour councillors are the people in our communities, we know what the issues are.

“I think Labour voices at a local level have been somewhat taken for granted in the party nationally.”

Labour’s Penrith and the Border candidate Sarah Williams said the party’s relationship with Brexit was an inescapable part of that problem. The Tory-stronghold was won by Dr Neil Hudson.

“The overriding impression on the doorstep was that people are sick to the teeth of Brexit. They found the idea of ‘Get Brexit Done’ very compelling,” she said.

“When people were willing to engage it was really good. A lot of people were interested in Labour ideas on the NHS, but some people weren’t willing to engage with anything other than ‘Get Brexit Done’.”

Ms Williams believed the national press had an impact on the electorate’s perception of the Labour leadership.

“It was enormous (the impact), that is why we had one of my team being called a terrorist.”

Newly returned Carlisle Conservative MP John Stevenson said the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader undoubtedly worked in his party’s favour.

“Jeremy Corbyn was a deeply unpopular figure. His programme of socialism was not believed by the voters,” he said.

But, Mr Stevenson added that he felt the Conservatives were also increasingly being embraced as a party across the north of England.

“I genuinely think the Conservative Party is changing, and this election will accelerate that change,” he said.

“If you look at the statistics, we’ve now become far more appealing to working class voters, as well as middle class voters.

“I think that’s representative of a shift in the north generally, and this election was the breakthrough.”

As for who should replace Mr Corbyn as Labour Party leader, Ms Williams believes the answer is clear.

Reflecting on conversations she had with potential voters on the doorstep throughout the Penrith and the Border constituency, she said: “If you want me to tell you who they want to be the next leader, that would be Keir Starmer.”

For Mrs Alcroft, the next Labour leader must be a uniting figure.

“The next leader needs to be able to bring the different views held by those in the party together,” she said.