Labour and Green Party candidates for Richmond Park expressed their pride after stealing a significant share of the votes from Liberal Democrats.
In her speech following the results, Green candidate Andrée Frieze said: “It has been a great evening and we had a great result.”
She won a 6% share of the turnout with 3,548 votes, an increase for the Richmond Park Green Party of just over 5% from 2010.
Labour’s Sachin Patel received 12.3% of the votes, the highest vote share for the party in Richmond Park since Sue Jenkins received 12.6% vote share in 1997.
Mr Patel took to Twitter to credit his campaign team for the increase and praise the campaign attitude of his competitors.
He said: “I believe we have shown the nation how a campaign should be run – we’ve kept it policy-based and not personal and we are very proud of that”
Mr Patel’s campaign has focused on young people, mental health and NHS issues, and he is proud of the impact he has already made by engaging with youth and students.
Speaking before the results, he said: “My goal has been to try to show people that there’s no barriers in politics and I’ve had people, especially students, phone me and message me saying they’ve seen me and now they want to do it.”
UKIP also increased their vote share from 2010, winning 4.2% with 2,464 votes for Sam Naz.
The Richmond Park Liberal Democrats felt the sting, with Robin Meltzer winning only 11,389 votes – 23,015 votes behind Conservative winner Zac Goldsmith, who retained the seat with a majority of 58.2%.
Mr Meltzer nonetheless appeared to be in good spirits after the results were announced.
He said: “I would like to personally congratulate Zac Goldsmith for retaining the seat and thank all candidates and the spirit of the campaign – I’ve enjoyed every single moment of it. Also thank you to my agent and everybody who voted for us on a difficult night.”
