London election results map 2019: How did the capital vote in the UK general election?

Party wins Putney and holds onto marginal seats — but majorities fall in strongholds
Ross Lydall @RossLydall30 December 2019
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London bucked the national trend as Labour held firm against the swing to the Conservatives.

It won Putney and held onto marginal seats such as Dagenham & Rainham and Battersea, but saw its majority slashed in many strongholds.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party lost Kensington and failed to win key targets such as Chingford & Woodford Green, where former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith survived, and

Chipping Barnet, where Theresa Villiers was returned. Only four London seats changed hands, resulting in a status quo: the Tories gained two but lost two, and both Labour and the Liberal Democrats gained one but lost one.

General Election Night: December 2019 - In pictures

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As in 2017, Labour holds 49 of the 73 constituencies, the Tories 21 and the Lib Dems three. The Tory gains were in Kensington, regaining a previously safe seat by only 150 votes, and in Carshalton & Wallington, where it defeated Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, who held the seat for 22 years.

The only Lib Dem gain was in Richmond Park, where Sarah Olney, who held the seat briefly after a 2016 by-election, regained it by defeating Tory Zac Goldsmith, an ardent Brexiteer in a pro-Remain constituency.

Labour’s only gain was in marginal Putney, where Fleur Anderson won by 4,774 votes after the previous MP, former Tory cabinet minister Justine Greening, stood down.

Moderate Labour MPs were quick to blame Mr Corbyn, whose own majority in Islington North was cut by more than 7,000. Margaret Hodge, re-elected in Barking with a 15,427 majority, said: “We are the nasty party.”

Siobhain McDonagh, the Blairite who held Mitcham & Morden, said: “This is one man’s fault. Not since 1935 have we had such a bad General Election result.”

Attention will now turn to what the results mean for next May’s mayoral elections. They suggest that London remains a pro-Europe Labour city, good news for anti-Brexit Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, who spent much of the last month pounding the streets in more than 30 seats supporting his party’s candidates.

Voters in marginal Uxbridge and South Ruislip came out for Boris Johnson, who increased his majority by more than 2,000 votes to 7,210, ending speculation he was at personal risk of losing his seat.

The disastrous Lib Dem performance nationwide was less marked in London. Its three high-profile defectors each failed to win but made inroads in seats where victory was always unlikely.

Former Labour minister Chuka Ummuna was defeated by Nickie Aiken, the Tory leader of Westminster council, by almost 4,000 votes in Cities of London and Westminster. But he increased the Lib Dem share of the vote by almost 20 per cent.

Luciana Berger, the former Labour MP who quit the party over anti-Semitism, increased the Lib Dem vote by 25 per cent in Finchley & Golders Green but lost by 6,500 votes to incumbent Tory Mike Freer.

Sam Gyimah, the former Tory MP, came third in Kensington with a nine per cent increase in the Lib Dem vote.

But by claiming 9,312 votes he arguably took support from Labour MP Emma Dent Coad, allowing the seat to be won by Tory Felicity Buchan by only 150 votes.

Prominent Tory Greg Hands survived in Chelsea & Fulham with a 11,241 majority, despite the Lib Dem challenge from City “superwoman” Nicola Horlick.

She cut the Tory majority by almost 5,000 votes. Stephen Hammond, another prominent Tory, survived in Wimbledon by just 638 votes over Lib Dem Paul Kohler, the victim of a brutal burglary who campaigned on police station closures.

The inner-outer London divide remains, with Tories holding only three central seats and the majority of its support remaining in the suburbs. Tory London Assembly member Tony Devenish admitted it had been a “difficult night” in the capital.

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