Rupa Huq retained her Ealing Central and Acton seat tonight, having secured 51.3% of the vote share with 28,132 votes, by Aman Pathiara, Suzie Tombs, Samuel Draper and Ronan Barnard.

Conservative candidate Julian Gallant won 14,832 votes, Liberal Democrats’ Sonul Badiani gained 9,444, Green Party’s Kate Crossland won 1,735 votes, while the Brexit Party’s Samir Alsoodani gained 664 votes.

Expressing mixed feelings, Dr Huq said: “Obviously, I feel exhilaration at our own result here, tinged with sadness at the broader national picture. The first thing we’ll have to do is keep holding this rotten government to account.

“I’m sad that we’re not going to have that transformational Labour government with a manifesto of hope and change that we all campaigned so hard over.

“But we will keep holding Boris Johnson, the lying traitor, to account.”

Dr Huq, who has held the seat since 2015, also said: “I still think we have the best possible policy regarding Brexit, which was a People’s Vote. It was a bad idea to bundle [Brexit] into a General Election, because it gets contaminated with all sorts of issues.

“I still feel that a People’s Vote on that pure issue - on the deal - and I will keep on making that case.”

Dr Huq felt that her party did the best job they could, but that they were hampered by outside influences.

She said: “I think the Liberal Democrats have been incredibly destructive – they trashed the whole People’s Vote campaign.

“People came in coach loads from all over the country on that march, and pretty much the next day, the Lib Dems - and the SNP as well - pulled the plug on all of them, wanting a quick election, and it looks like their leader may have lost her seat.

“So I think they’ve got their just desserts.”

Dr Huq also believes that a winter election may have contributed to Labour’s worst performance since World War II.

She added: “Having an election in December was not the best idea in the first place. We haven’t had one since 1923 in this country – for a reason!

I think turnout here is 73% - all over the country, the ones I was watching on TV, the turnout plummeted. That’s bad for democracy; it struck me as almost Trump-ian, this idea to have it in the dark, in the cold, so people don’t come out.”