#GE2024: HERE WE GO
Welcome to Inside Croydon’s unmatched coverage of the 2024 General Election results night for south London.
Working with our colleagues at GreenwichWire, we have reporters and citizen journalists at the counts in Croydon (natch), Sutton, Brixton (where Streatham and Croydon North is being counted), plus Greenwich, Bexley and Lewisham – meaning that we have in-depth insights from more than a dozen south London constituencies.
Bookmark this page and keep returning and refreshing the page for our live coverage, with updates on events nationally throughout the night.
Each new post will be timestamped, with the most recent postings being right here at the top of the page.
We welcome your election-day pictures and news, your comments and your observations, which you can send to us (confidentially if you prefer) by email at inside.croydon@btinternet.com or via Twitter @InsideCroydon
Our reporting team includes Vimal Vivegananda and Ken Towl in Croydon, Dave Burton in Sutton, and Darryl Chamberlain’s mighty team in Greenwich, Lewisham and Bexley.
We’ll be back with more analysis and commentary later on Friday.
The state of the parties at 4.30am on July 5
5.15am: RESULT – Carshalton and Wallington
This time round, it wasn’t even close. The public must have been voting for Dean’s dog (pictured right).
Bobby Dean (LibDem) 20,126 (43.1% +2.0)
Elliot Colburn (Con) 12,221 (26.2% -16.2)
Hersh Thaker (Lab) 6,108 (13.1% +0.7)
Elizabeth Cooper (Reform UK) 5,941 (12.7% +10.6)
Tracey Hague (Green) 1,517 (3.3% +1.8)
Atif Abdul Rashid (Workers Party) 441 (0.9% +0.9)
Ashley Dickenson (CPA) 231 (0.5% +0.1)
LibDem gain from Con. Majority 7,905
5.10am: Close, but no cigar
Details of some nearby constituencies with some interest to our readers:
5.00am: RESULT – Sutton and Cheam
Luke Taylor (LibDem) 17,576 (36.9% +3.5)
Tom Drummond (Con) 13,775 (28.9% –21.1)
Chrishni Reshekaron (Lab) 8,430 (17.7% +3.4)
Ryan Powell (Reform UK) 5,787 (12.2% +12.2)
Aasha Anam (Green) 1,721 (3.6% +1.3)
Hamilton Action-Man Kingsley (Ind) 317 (0.7% +0.7)
LibDem gain from Con. Majority 3,801
4.55am: What the election winners have to say: Natasha Irons
4.50am: What the election winners have to say: Sarah Jones
4.45am: A modern-day record
Well, there we are: four Croydon parliamentary election results all declared, and the first light of dawn hasn’t quite been seen…
4.30am: RESULT – Streatham and Croydon North
The Greens’ Scott Ainslie polled 7,629. Tory Anthony Boutall got 5,328, and LibDem Claire Bonham 5,031.
4.15am: RESULT – Croydon South
Puzzled: Chris Philp moments before he was announced as the winner in Croydon South
The “Croydon Effect” played its part, with Conservative minister “Congo” Chris Philp hanging on to his seat in Croydon South.
Philp, who has been MP for Croydon South since 2015, won with 19,757 votes, with Labour’s Ben Taylor failing to take the seat despite huge resources put into the seat, with 17,444. Philp had had a 12,000-vote majority in 2019.
Rick Howard, the LibDem candidate, was third with 4,384.
Reform took 4,149 votes from the Tories.
4.05am: RESULT – Croydon West
Back for more: Sarah Jones, an MP since 2017, gives her acceptance speech after being elected for the new Croydon West seat
Labour’s Sarah Jones wins the new Croydon West seat, polling 20,612, a 14,000-vote majority over Conservative candidate Simon Fox (6,386), with Ria Patel, of the Greens, third (3,851).
4.00am: RESULT – Dulwich and West Norwood
Labour’s Helen Hayes returned as MP.
3.50am: RESULT – Lewisham North
3.45am: ‘Dissent cannot be crushed’ says Corbyn
The estimate of a 1,500-vote margin of victory for Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North proved to be a gross under-estimate.
The former leader of the Labour Party polled 24,120 votes, while his Labour opponent got only 16,876.
In Corbyn’s victory annaouncement, he said, “Tonight’s result in Islington North gives us a glimpse of a different future, which puts the interests of the many ahead of those of the few.
“It is also a warning, a warning to the incoming government that dissent cannot be crushed without consequences. That ideas of equality, justice and peace are eternal. The hope for a better world can never be extinguished.
“Tonight we celebrate. Tomorrow, we organise.”
Elsewhere in north London, Keir Starmer was returned in Holborn and St Pancras, but with a reduced vote, as independent candidate Andrew Feinstein took 19% of the vote in a “Palestine premium”, of protest votes against the current Labour leader’s stand on Gaza.
3.30am: RESULT – Croydon East
Declaration: the Croydon East candidates, with Natasha Irons on the right, line up for their result. The Reform candidate did not appear to have turned up
Natasha Irons is declared the winner of the new Croydon East seat.
Unlike when she was selected as the candidate by the Labour Party, this time there was actually a number of votes announced.
Before the result was announced, Katherine Kerswell asked of the Reform candidate, “Is Mr Holman here?”
Jason Cummings, the Tory candidate, responded: “No one’s seen him throughout the campaign.” Holman’s 5,800 votes would have got the Conservatives much closer to winning the seat.
Natasha Irons (Lab) 18,541
Jason Cummings (Con) 11,716
Scott Holman (Reform) 5,862
Peter Underwood (Green) 4,097
Andrew Pelling (LibDem) 3,563
3.20am: Lambeth seats have Greens as strongest challengers
Steve Reed has arrived at the count.
3.00am: RESULT – Lewisham East
Janet Daby has won Lewisham East for Labour with 23,646 votes.
Michael Herron, of the Greens, was second with 5,573, pushing Tory Louise Brice into third (4,401).
2.55am: National summary of results declared so far
2.40am: Independent Corbyn wins in Islington North
Sources in latte-drinking, quinoa-eating north London suggest that Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has retained his Islington North seat by 1,500 votes.
So not the perfect night for Keir Starmer after all.
2.25am: Tory Drummond concedes defeat in Sutton and Cheam
Facing defeat: Tom Drummond (dark suit, right) discusses the vote with Conservative colleagues in Sutton
Tom Drummond, the Conservative candidate seeking to replace Paul Scully as MP for Sutton and Cheam, has conceded defeat to his LibDem rival, Luke Taylor.
He blamed his fate on the number of votes won by Reform.
“We’ve been undone by Reform here,” said Drummond, who is the leader of the Tory opposition on Sutton Council.
“I didn’t speak to a single Reform voter who wasn’t a disgruntled Conservative.
“If you add our vote the the Reform vote, we’d have won comfortably. But I have to take it gracefully.”
2.20am: It’s all hi-tech at the Bexley count
Better voting figures in the Bexley seats, it seems.
2.10am: The national story is of unrelenting bad news for Tories
James Ball is the political editor of The New European.
Richard Holden is the chairman of the Conservative Party, who was installed as candidate in the apparently “safe” Basildon and Billericay constituency under dubious circumstances.
In the meantime, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, who claimed she was “doing a fucking good job”, has lost her Chichester seat to the LibDems.
1.55am: Croydon turn-outs – did the borough’s Tories stay at home?
- Croydon East: 56%
- Croydon South: 66%
- Croydon West: 49%
“It reflects where the main parties focused their campaign efforts,” according to one of our pundits at the count.
1.50am: Headline news
1.40am: First hard figures
In Sutton and Cheam (a LibDem target, previously won by Conservative Paul Scully, who is not seeking reselection), the turnout is 66% (it was 70.3% in 2019).
In Carshalton and Wallington (a very marginal Tory seat, which the LibDems are confident of winning), the turnout is 62.9% (it was 67.3% five years ago).
A Tory source at the count says that the Reform vote there is bigger than they expected. They appear to expect to lose the seat now.
1.20am: Philp’s in the building!
“Congo” Chris Philp has arrived in Fisher’s Folly, to await his fate.
Meanwhile, in Brixton, they are conducting four constituency counts tonight, including Streatham and Croydon North, where Steve Reed is expected to be returned to parliament for Labour.
Counts in three of those seats had started by 1.20am, but they were still verifying the votes for Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood ward, in the Streatham and Croydon North seat.
Important details from the canteen at Fisher’s Folly, where breakfast staples like bacon, and sausages are available. “Lovely Spanish woman who will do you a ‘cafe especial’ if you ask nicely in Spanish.”
Facilities are not quite so well-appointed for the women’s toilets at Knights Academy in Downham, where the Lewisham count is being conducted, as this picture illustrates:
Toilet humour: maybe this is to cope with paper candidates?
1.15am: ‘Ben’s run a good campaign’ – Labour managing expectations
The next MP for Croydon South?: Ben Taylor
Croydon Labour’s taking nothing for granted over the Croydon South result.
Ken Towl reports from the count in Fisher’s Folly: “Labour are talking down Croydon South. Ben ‘ran a good campaign’, they are saying, the sort of thing you normally say to console a losing candidate. Really, it looks like false modesty.”
The Croydon South count is set to begin at 1.15am.
And Towl writes: “I’ve just had a chat with Vinayak Malhotra, Reform’s candidate for Croydon West. He is like a little lost lamb wandering around, all alone. I asked him what he thought about Reform coming second in the Sunderland seats and Blyth and he said only winning counts.
“He also suggested that he knew what the result was going to be in Croydon West but he hoped he was wrong!”
12.55am: Kerswell’s message to council staff at the election
Inside Croydon knows that the council chief exec has a huge number of fans among our readers, especially for her Weekly Waffle – her email sent to the cash-strapped council’s hard-pressed staff.
This is what Kerswell, in charge of the General Election counts for Croydon East, Croydon West and Croydon South (pictured below), sent out to council staff today…
Polling day is here! We’ve already been sent some fantastic photos showing off our local polling stations. It is great to see people of all ages exercising their right to vote and buildings across Croydon transform for this important event. Our role as a local authority is crucial in making sure occasions like today run smoothly. We have 139 polling stations in Croydon and three full parliamentary constituencies, Croydon West, Croydon South and Croydon East, as well as the Streatham and Croydon North constituency, which we share with Lambeth.
The Croydon count is happening in [Fisher’s Folly] which has meant teams working hard to get the area ready for such a large event. So, it’s only right that this week’s shout out goes to everyone involved. From electoral services who’ve been planning and preparing, to the officers working at polling stations, the people supporting the count tonight and each and every person who has had a hand in making sure we followed pre-election period guidance right through to the logistics of getting our streets and roads ready and all the clearing up afterwards! Thank you all.
The country’s focus is very rightly on the outcomes of the elections and the MPs who are elected. The work that goes into safe, fair and accurate elections often goes unseen. As Acting Returning Officer for this election, I want to say to each one of you thank you. You have given so much of your time, days, evenings, and weekends to make this election run smoothly. Your unstinting efforts have been seen and valued and I sincerely thank you for all you have done.
We will be updating our website with the Croydon election results as soon as they’re announced, and you can also keep an eye on social channels for the latest news. It is likely to be in the early hours of Friday morning so if you are a night owl or an early bird please look out for the news!
12.45am: Bad news from the Croydon count – they’re only just starting
Our reporter in Fisher’s Folly, Vimal Vivegananda, says that the votes for Croydon WEst and Croydon South have not yet been verified.
The count for Croydon East was about to begin at 12.45am.
In case any of you have forgotten, the last time that returning officer Katherine Kerswell oversaw an election in Croydon, in 2022, the count took from Thursday until Sunday to complete.
12.40am: The Guardian’s take on Reform’s progress in early results
12.20am: Farage party attract solid votes in Carshalton and Wallington
Over-dressed: Colin Stears, the Mayor of Sutton, has turned up at the count
Dave Burton, reporting from the Sutton counts, says: “The Reform vote in Carshalton and Wallington looking incredibly strong, I’m told. Conservatives getting blasted.” Carshalton and Wallington was won by Tory Elliot Colborn by a few hundred votes from veteran LibDem Tom Brake in 2019.
“Labour well behind Reform, who look like they might come second,” Burton says.
“Some counting has now begun.
A senior Labour source in Sutton has told our reporter that “depending on postal votes, we think we’re vying for second to LibDems in Sutton and Cheam”.
The senior Labour source then admitted that they didn’t send anyone to the opening of the postal votes…
And a result from Swindon South sees a 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, with Heidi Alexander winning the seat from Sir Robert Buckland, a former Tory Lord Chancellor.
MIDNIGHT: What will be the ‘Portillo Moment’ of 2024?
Cheerio?: Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tonight’s “seismic result” (© Channel 4) could see a number of Tory cabinet ministers losing their seats – not just Chris Philp in Croydon South who in 2019 had a 12,000-vote majority.
Other possible forcible departures include Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the new seat of Godalming and Ash, where he held a 10,700-vote majority, Penny Mordaunt, she of the huge Coronation sword, and who was among the favourites to become the next Conservative leader (16,000 notional majority in the new Portsmouth North constituency), and Jacob Rees-Mogg could lose his west country seat, where he had a 16,000 majority.
Rishi Sunak, the pollsters say, is 99% certain to cling on to his Yorkshire seat.
11.50pm: What’s happening at the counts
The long count begins: Fisher’s Folly providing a cramped count venue, as the council’s tellers begin their night-long work
Mercy mission: Rishi Sunak’s visit to Purley doesn’t appear to have saved Chris Philp, according to the exit polls
Ken Towl, reporting for iC from within the Croydon count at Fisher’s Folly: “Jason Cummings, the Conservative candidate in Croydon East, is walking around, the very personification of ‘glum’.
“Meanwhile an army of Labour members walk around exuding centrist confidence and with clipboards trying to find evidence of what they already know, that they have won.”
Cummings is the Tory councillor in charge of finances for the council, who has hiked Council Tax by 21% since 2023.
He was admitting privately last week that he had no hope of winning in Croydon East, but the glumness tonight is most likely because Croydon Conservatives realise that they have failed in their mission to keep Chris Philp in office, despite Wednesday’s flying visit from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Over at the Lewisham count, GreenwichWire’s reporter says that all the polling boxes were in by just after 11.30pm, “with quite a few votes for Reform in Lewisham East”.
11.30pm: Andrew Fisher on what the polling means
“This is a total rejection of the Conservatives, whose vote has halved since 2019.
“If projections are right that Labour has won nearly two-thirds of the seats on little over one-third of vote, then it will amplify calls for a fairer voting system.”
11.25pm: Who needs proportional representation?
Ed Davey’s LibDem election campaign has won much admiration and plaudits.
But according to exit polling, it looks as if the Liberal Democrats are going to go from 11 MPs to possibly more than 60 with exactly the same share of the vote from 2019.
11.15pm: First result – Sunderland South
Phillipson got 6,000 fewer votes than she polled in 2017.
Meanwhile, lots of hedging going on in the TV studios, particularly by Labour, as it looks as if they will win a vast majority with just 36% of the vote.
“Keir may win, but with a reduced majority,” says the incorrigible old spin-doctor, Campbell, on Channel 4, of the Labour leader’s likely performance in his own north London constituency, while Baroness Harman (as she now is) claims that Labour “could have piled up the votes” in safe Labour seats, but that they chose to direct campaign resources to target seats.
Up to a point, Lord (or Lady) Copper…
10.50pm: Exit Poll analysis – Croydon South a Labour gain
The “likely Labour gain” from Ipsos for Sky News and the BBC rates the result as 99% likely.
Other predicted Labour gains are Bexleyheath, Orpington and Old Bexley.
The Liberal Democrats are predicted to win both Sutton seats, Carshalton and Wallington and Sutton and Cheam, from the Conservatives.
Ready for the boxes: the scene at the Westcroft Leisure Centre, where Sutton’s counts are to take place
On the BBC, Professor John Curtice has added some useful context: “Labour has likely secured their anticipated landslide victory, though they may have fallen just short of the majority Tony Blair won at the 1997 General Election.”
Curtice also points out that Labour will achieve this on a smaller share of the vote than they secured in 2017 under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Curtice, who worked on the exit polling, has told the BBC that they are least confident about the seat figures for Reform UK (13) and for the SNP (10).
With the SNP, he says they have fewer sampling points in Scotland, making it harder to get a firm forecast. But he says he is confident about Labour being the larger party in Scotland.
And he says, with Reform UK, there are seats where they are ahead, but the margin is very tight. He says they could end up with quite a lot fewer seats, or perhaps even more.
Channel 4 News’s political editor Gary Gibbon says that Labour’s vote in Labour-voting London is down, a reflection perhaps of disquiet over the party’s stand over Gaza and Palestine, while other voters may have drifted away to more radical parties.
10.35pm: Something to help you through the night
Not just coffee and Gummy Bears, but also Tory Party Rats-in-a-Sack Blame Drinking Game…
10.30pm: Tories still rewarding corruption to the very end
In the minutes before the exit poll was released, the Dissolution Honours were announced, and extraordinarily they managed to include a knighthood for Alister Jack, the Tory minister who put three bets on the election date.
Oh dear: same old TOries, to the bitter end
Of the new peers, the Conservative Party nominees include “Failing” Chris Grayling, the former MP for Epsom, and Theresa May, Gavin Barwell’s former boss in No10, while Labour has decided to put into the Lords Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman and Margaret Hodge.
Caroline Pidgeon, former LibDem leader in the London Assembly, is also made a peer.
10pm: THE EXIT POLL
Labour delight: celebrations at a Labour Party party in Ruskin House at the exit poll announcement. At the back of the room, by the Christmas tree (!) you can see Sarah Jones punching the air
So as the polls close, here’s the snapshot from across the whole country:
A LABOUR LANDSLIDE
Keir Starmer is expected to form the next government with 410 MPs.
The Conservatives are wiped out to 131 seats, with the Liberal Democrats winning a record number of seats, 61.
Reform is predicted to win 13 seats.
“This underlines that we live in very volatile times,” Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin-doctor, tells Channel 4.
Exit poll: some Tories are sighing with relief that they have clung on to 131 seats
The exit poll gives Starmer’s Labour a majority of 170 – less than Blair achieved in 1997.
But not a single vote had yet been counted, and there’s just 650 constituency results still to come…
9.40pm: Election day ‘dirty tricks’ keeps Croydon Greens off Twitter
The Croydon Green Party’s Twitter account was also suspended.
Underwood and the Greens have no idea what the “charges” are against them – Musk’s army of bots don’t operate on any form of reasonable process when it comes to kicking people off their platform.
The suspension occurred for both accounts at 6am today, polling day, July 4.
“Over the years, I’ve reported accounts for the most offensive and abusive posts and always get told that they won’t be suspended,” Underwood told Inside Croydon.
“So for both me and the local party account to be suspended on election day feels like something very dodgy is going on.”
Underwood, who has around 5,000 followers on Twitter, says that his account was getting a lot of attention on Wednesday night, with hundreds of retweets, in the build-up to election day.
Suspended: the Green Party got no prior notification, no suggestion of what the ‘charges’ are, and have been locked off the social media site all through election day
The Labour Party in Croydon East, it is worth remembering, remains under investigation by the Met Police for offences under the Computer Misuse Act in connection to their dodgy candidate selection process, although there is no suggestion that the two matters are connected.
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