The Tories have pulled off a shock by-election victory in Boris Johnson’s former seat after Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion killed off Labour’s hopes.
Conservative candidate Steve Tuckwell squeaked home with a slender majority of 495 against all expectations of a comfortable Labour win.
The result will be a huge boost to Rishi Sunak, who faced a bruising night elsewhere as his party took a pummeling from the Lib Dems in Somerset.
Mr Tuckwell secured 13,965 votes in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which was represented by Mr Johnson up until his resignation as an MP last month.
The Tory candidate campaigned heavily on the expansion of the Ulez driving tax to all of Greater London which has prompted huge voter anger.
In his victory speech, he said the decision by Mr Khan, the mayor of London, was directly to credit for him being able to pull off a shock win.
“Sadiq Khan has lost Labour this election. It was damaging and costly Ulez policy that lost them this election,” he said to cheers from Conservative campaigners.
“The pundits expected Labour to win big here but our community came together. This wasn’t the campaign Labour expected and Keir Starmer and his mayor Sadiq Khan need to sit up and listen.”
Labour also acknowledged that Ulez had played a big role in the outcome, admitting it was “a concern” for voters who are facing a cost-of-living crisis.
A party spokesman added: “This was always going to be a difficult battle in a seat that has never had a Labour MP and we didn’t even win in 1997.”
Despite their victory the Tories still shed almost all of the 7,210 majority won by Mr Johnson in 2019 and face an uphill battle to hold the seat at the next general election.
And elsewhere in the country it was a dire night for the Conservatives, with the party surrendering a massive majority in Somerton and Frome.
The Tories held the seat by a comfortable 19,213 votes last time out, but suffered an enormous 29pc swing to the Liberal Democrats.
Sarah Dyke, the Lib Dem candidate, now has a healthy majority of 11,008.
A spokesman for the party said: “We’ve not just won, we’ve romped home. The Conservative vote is in freefall.”