By Naomi Curston
December 13 2019, 10.30
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A victorious Labour MP spoke of his devastation over his party’s performance moments after being declared the winner in Croydon North.
Steve Reed won Croydon North with 36,495 votes, a 65.6% share of the vote.
However, nationally, Labour lost 59 seats and were wiped out across huge swathes of the country.
Mr Reed said: “The results nationally for the Labour Party are devastating.
“Labour’s been hammered nationally and I could cry.”
Mr Reed’s pessimism was mirrored almost exactly in the words of his Croydon South colleague, Olga FitzRoy, who did not win her seat.
She said: “I’m devastated about the national result.
“There’s loads of people who need a Labour government and I think we’ve failed them.”
As Labour candidates such as Margaret Hodge rushed to blame Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour defeat, Mr Reed was more careful.
He said that Mr Corbyn’s decision to step down before the next election was the right one, but he didn’t think Mr Corbyn was entirely to blame.
He said: “There will have been a complex set of reasons that led to this defeat.
“You can’t put it into one single reason.”
Dame Hodge, however, tweeted: “I’ve reflected. You failed. Please stand down,” in response to Mr Corbyn’s call for a period of reflection.
Mr Reed was also reluctant to place the blame entirely on Labour’s Brexit stance.
He said time was needed to learn the lessons from this defeat and making assumptions would not help the party move forwards.
Referring to his victory, Mr Reed said: “I’m ecstatic about that, it’s humbling and it is the honour of my life.”
He also thanked voters for supporting him for the fourth time in seven years, acknowledging they had been asked to vote an extraordinary number of times.
Croydon North has been represented by the Labour Party since its creation in 1997.
Mr Reed has been in the seat since 2012.
