Three councillors represent Hemsworth, Ward 7, on Wakefield Metropolitan District Council.<ref>{{cite web |title=Hemsworth councillors on Wakefield MDC |url=http://mg.wakefield.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?FN=WARD&VW=LIST&PIC=0 |website=Wakefield Metropolitan District Council |access-date=24 March 2021}}</ref>
The current Member of Parliament, [[Jon Trickett]] (Labour), has represented Hemsworth since a by-election in 1996. Trickett was most recently re-elected in December 2019 with a majority of 1,180, much reduced from the majority of 10,174 two years’years earlier. Labour’s share of the vote was down from 56 per cent to 37.5 per cent.
Labour havehas represented the seat of Hemsworth since its creation in 1918, and from 1966 to 1974 held it with the largest majority of any party in the UK. From 1950 to 1974 Labour’s share of the vote never dropped below 80 per cent. That it is now a marginal seat is regarded as partly due to the disappearance of the coal mining industry, the reorganisation of Conservative-voting areas of the southern part of Wakefield into the constituency in 2010 and the prominence of [[Brexit]] as an election issue in 2019. It is estimated that 68.1 per cent of the constituency voted leave in the [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum| EU referendum]] of 2016.<ref>{{cite web |title=Brexit: votes by constituency |url=https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/brexit-votes-by-constituency/ |website=House of Commons Library |access-date=24 March 2021}}</ref>
