The Tories scored a stunning by-election victory in Boris Johnson’s former seat after Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion dashed Labour’s hopes.
Conservative candidate Steve Tuckwell grated with a slim majority of 495 against all expectations of a comfortable Labor victory.
The result will be a big boost for Rishi Sunak, who faced a tough night elsewhere when his group took a beating from the Lib Dems in Somerset.
Tuckwell polled 13,965 votes in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which was represented by Johnson until his resignation as MP last month.
The Tory candidate campaigned heavily on the expansion of the Ulez driving tax to the whole of Greater London, which has sparked great ire from voters.
In his victory speech, he said that the decision of Khan, the mayor of London, was due directly to the merit of having achieved a stunning victory.
“Sadiq Khan has lost to Labor in this election. It was Ulez’s damaging and costly policy that made them lose this election,” he said to applause from conservative activists.
“The pundits expected Labor to win big here, but our community rallied. This was not the campaign Labor had hoped for and Keir Starmer and his mayor Sadiq Khan need to sit up and listen.”
