As election night wore on, the fates of politicians from across the political spectrum hung in the balance. Here are the winners, the losers and the survivors.
Loser: Jo Swinson
Lib Dem, East Dunbartonshire
Only elected Lib Dem leader this summer when the party was still high on the success of its EU election campaign, Swinson played a key role in triggering this general election when she decided to back Boris Johnson’s calls for a vote. She decided to run a presidential campaign on an explicit platform of revoking Brexit – saying she was aiming to be prime minister – but the message failed to land with the public and her popularity plummeted. On a personal level, she paid the price for spending too long on the campaign trail and not long enough in her Scottish constituency, ultimately losing to the SNP by 149 votes. Her defeat means the Lib Dems are staring at another leadership election.
Loser: Dennis Skinner
Labour, Bolsover
The Beast of Bolsover is no more. Dennis Skinner served 49 years as Labour MP for the Derbyshire seat but the former miner was voted out by his constituents in favour of the Conservative candidate, despite regularly voting with the government on Brexit legislation. Skinner would have became Father of the House – the longest serving member of the Commons – if he had been re-elected. Instead he has been replaced with Conservative Mark Fletcher, who paid tribute to a “wonderful constituency MP” and told Skinner that “the love and affection of the people of Bolsover are still with you”.
Loser: Zac Goldsmith
Conservatives, Richmond Park
The former mayor of London candidate was undone by his longstanding pro-Brexit views, losing out to the Liberal Democrats in one of the few positive results of the night for Swinson’s party. Goldsmith was replaced by Sarah Olney, who took a large 7,766-vote majority.
Survivor: Iain Duncan Smith
Conservatives, Chingford and Woodford Green
Labour chucked everything it could at taking out the former Conservative party leader, a longtime Brexiter, in his outer London constituency. Hundreds of activists pounded the streets but could not do enough to get over the line, with Duncan Smith winning by 23,481 votes to Labour’s 22,419.
Winner: Ian Levy
Conservatives, Blyth Valley
The leave-voting former mining constituency of Blyth Valley was one of the first seats to declare – and confirmed that Labour was on track for a terrible night. The Northumberland constituency has been in Labour’s hands continuously since 1950 and even at the last election the party had a 19% majority. But an extraordinary surge in Tory support delivered the seat a Conservative MP in the form of Ian Levy, who told the audience: “On Monday, I’m getting the train to London and we’re going to get Brexit done!”
Survivor: Dominic Raab
Conservatives, Esher and Walton
The Liberal Democrats were quietly confident of taking the Surrey constituency from the pro-Brexit foreign secretary by appealing to remain voters to lend their votes to the party. Although the Lib Dems tripled their vote compared with 2017, this was still not enough to get them over the line.
Loser: Sue Hayman
Labour, Workington
The Cumbrian coastal constituency was flooded with journalists after the Tory thinktank Onward suggested that “Workington man” represented the older, working-class male voters who the Conservatives would need to win over. Although mocked at the time, the prediction appears to have been vindicated. Sue Hayman, who had served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet for the last two years, had been hoping to go into government as environment secretary. Instead, she has found herself out of a job after the Conservatives won the constituency for the first time at a general election, breaking more than a century of Labour dominance.
Survivor: Ian Lavery
Labour, Wansbeck
The Labour party co-chair and former president of the National Union of Mineworkers has been an enthusiastic supporter of Corbyn and played a key role in shaping the campaign, regularly appearing on the airwaves to push the party’s policies. But Lavery only just held on to his Northumberland seat after a recount and saw his majority cut from 10,435 to 814. The once-solid Labour constituency, which did not register as a potential battleground in this general election, will be a key Tory target in the next contest.
Loser: Chuka Umunna
Lib Dem, Cities of London and Westminster
Until February Chuka Umunna was the Labour MP for Streatham. Following a botched attempt to start a new political party under the banner of Change UK, he defected to the Liberal Democrats and decided to target the remain-voting Tory-held central London constituency of Cities of London and Westminster. But the remain vote was split between the Lib Dems and Labour, enabling the Conservatives to emerge victorious – potentially ending Umunna’s political career. A similar fate hit his former Change UK colleagues who defected to the Lib Dems. Sarah Wollaston, who stood for the party in Totnes was defeated, while Luciana Berger narrowly missed out in Finchley and Golders Green. All of the MPs who defected from major parties this year failed to get re-elected under their new party banners, including Anna Soubry.
Loser: Gareth Snell
Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central
The Labour MP lost his seat as the party faced a wipeout in the Potteries. He told the BBC he blamed Labour’s vague Brexit policy for the defeat, saying the leadership did not appreciate the damage caused in traditional Labour seats outside London by the party’s shift towards a remain position. He told the BBC: “Some of the siren voices in the shadow cabinet who have big Liberal Democrat votes in their London seats decided that stopping Brexit – and therefore lining themselves up for future leadership bids – was much more important than respecting the vote in marginal constituencies. They’ve sacrificed us for whatever political ambitions they want to do next.”
Loser: Nigel Dodds
DUP, Belfast North
The leader of the DUP in Westminster, Dodds played a key role in pushing the party to a pro-Brexit position and led it during its negotiations with the Conservatives as it propped up the minority government. But Boris Johnson abandoned the unionist party when he struck his Brexit deal and Dodds has now paid the price, losing to Sinn Féin’s John Finucane, who fought on a pro-remain platform.
Winner: Fleur Anderson
Labour, Putney
A rare Labour gain on an otherwise grim night for Corbyn’s party. Anderson took the inner London constituency from the Conservatives, after Justine Greening, a former Tory cabinet minister, decided to stand down. Putney received extra attention when the Momentum founder, Jon Lansman, a key Corbyn ally, told ITV that the constituency showed how some parts of the country were attracted to the Labour manifesto: “It’s all very well saying the policies have been rejected … The voters in Putney aren’t horrified by the policies.”
Winner: Stephen Farry
Alliance, North Down
The Northern Irish constituency had been represented by the independent unionist Sylvia Hermon since 2001, with the DUP pushing hard to take the seat. But in a sign of trouble for Arlene Foster’s party, it instead lost to the candidate from the cross-community Alliance party by 2,968 votes.
Loser: Lisa Forbes
Labour, Peterborough
Forbes became one of the shortest-serving MPs, having only been elected six months ago in a closely fought byelection for the key swing seat. The loss of Peterborough, which has swung between the Tories and Labour, was another indication that Corbyn’s party was suffering across the board. The new MP for the seat will be the Conservative Paul Bristow.
Loser: Phil Wilson
Labour, Sedgefield
Tony Blair’s former aide Phil Wilson was yet another Labour MP ousted by the Conservative wave that swept across the north of England. Although the pattern reflects other Labour defeats across the country, the loss of the former prime minister’s County Durham constituency is a symbolic blow to the party.
Loser: Laura Pidcock
Labour, North West Durham
The 32-year-old Labour rising star had been tipped a potential candidate to stand for party leader in the event of a Labour defeat, having already gained the backing of leading figures on the left of the party. But in the event the defeat was so substantial that the shadow cabinet minister’s own seat was lost. Although the result temporarily curtails her political career, she is already being tipped for a return in the future.
Loser: Luciana Berger
Lib Dem, Finchley and Golders Green
The former Labour MP who quit the party over antisemitism earlier this year was one of the founder members of the Independent Group but joined the Liberal Democrats in September, citing its opposition to Brexit. She had given up her Liverpool Wavertree seat to stand instead in Finchley and Golders Green, but was not able to defeat incumbent Mike Freer, who defeated her by 24,162 votes to 17,600.
