Four seats changed hands with Brexit key in a capital that largely voted to remain

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Voters in London were left confused and frustrated by results in some of the capital’s key seats as the spectre of Brexit drove some big shocks during the election night, cementing the city’s reputation as a remain enclave.

Ultimately, only four seats changed hands – Putney, Kensington, Richmond Park, and Carshalton and Wallington. The Conservatives gained two and lost two, Labour gained one and lost one, as did the Liberal Democrats – so overall across the capital there was no change.

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Three of these four seats overwhelmingly backed remain – Putney 72.24%, Kensington 68.8% and Richmond Park 71.31%, and it was in these seats that the biggest upsets occurred.

Tony Travers, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) department of government and director of LSE London, said the capital remained a “Labour city”.

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He added: “There was remarkably little change in London, which compared to the Midlands and the north is significantly better for Labour.

“Labour lost no seats net in the capital – it lost Kensington but gained Putney. London remains a ‘Labour city’, though the Conservatives did reasonably well compared to losses in recent years. Labour may have reached a high water mark, which means they can’t compensate for losses elsewhere.

“As elsewhere, the Liberal Democrats did very badly, given the size of the London ‘remain’ vote. The capital remains a ‘Labour v Conservative’ contest.

“One further thought, the 2019 general election result will make it hard for the Tories to hold boroughs such as Wandsworth and Westminster in the next (mid-term) local elections.”

In Putney, the very publicly pro-remain, pro-second referendum Labour candidate, Fleur Anderson, achieved the party’s only gain nationally of the night. The seat swung from the Conservatives, where Justine Greening, a vociferous remainer who saw the Tory whip removed, decided not to run again, having held the seat since 2005. Despite the Conservative candidate, Will Sweet, being a former remainer, it wasn’t enough to persuade the electorate and he fell short by 4,774 votes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fleur Anderson achieved Labour’s only gain of the night in Putney. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Nicholas Goddard, an NHS surgeon in his 60s, who has lived in Putney for 30 years and voted Conservative on Thursday, said the loss of Greening was behind the result.

He said: “We’ve had a very good constituency MP here in Putney for the last 10 years plus. She was a good representative of the people, she was unusual because she had principles. She lost two cabinet posts because of her principles. I think losing her was a major factor.”

Richmond Park has long been a febrile battleground between remain-backing Lib Dems and the Brexit-backing Tory incumbent Zac Goldsmith. Goldsmith lost his seat at a byelection that he triggered in 2016 over the government’s proposal for a third runway at nearby Heathrow. He managed to scrape back the seat in 2017 with a vulnerable majority of 45.

But last night Sarah Olney, the Lib Dem candidate who won the byelection in 2016, regained the seat – this time with a far more significant majority: 7,766 compared with 1,872 in 2016. It’s clear that as the Conservative party has lurched to the right, it has haemorrhaged many more of its moderate remain-backing supporters.

Emily Woodfield, 21, a receptionist who lives in Richmond Park, said Brexit was still a big concern but “the lurch of the Conservative party to the right is the biggest issue”.

She said: “I voted tactically to oust Zac Goldsmith, I feel that many Richmond Park residents did the same. I feel the surge for the Lib Dems was motivated primarily by a general desire to get the Tories out rather than genuine support for the party or their people.

“I feel generally heartbroken and devastated by the overall state of this election, but for me, this is a small victory.”

In Kensington, Labour’s Emma Dent-Coad lost to the Conservative candidate Felicity Buchan by 150 votes, despite the legacy of the Grenfell fire and the raging arguments around Tory austerity caused by the disaster.

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But what happened in Kensington was not about Grenfell, it was about “remain”. The total tally for referendum-backing Labour, Lib Dems and Greens came to 26,465 – 60.5% of the vote, towering over Buchan’s 38.3%.

It did not take long for angry Labour activists to pour scorn on the Lib Dems for fielding a high-profile candidate – the defecting former Tory minister Sam Gyimah.

Rather than standing aside to give Labour a stronger chance, their decision to run Gyimah appears to have split the remain vote and handed the seat to a leave-backing Tory.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, called Gyimah a carpetbagger, a slang-term for a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.



Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) So sad that my friend Emma Dent Coad, who was deeply rooted in the Kensington community and a wonderful MP, lost because of the intervention of carpetbagger Sam Gyimah. https://t.co/JC5GsPSn1I

Carshalton and Wallington on the southern edge of the London metropolitan area backed leave by 56.26% in the election so it is perhaps unsurprising that the Lib Dems lost the seat to the Conservatives.

But the Lib Dems’ candidate, Tom Brake, the party’s longest serving MP, having been first elected in 1997, lost his seat by only 629 votes. The Labour candidate – Ahmad Wattoo – pulled in 6,081 votes, once more raising the question over whether Brake might have survived had the remain vote not been split.