The Conservatives’ shock defeat in Chesham and Amersham is being marked as a warning shot to the party in the south-east.
A combination of rural heartlands, wealthy commuter hubs and, more recently, strong Brexit-leaning areas have allowed the party to control around 85 per cent of seats on offer – often with considerable majorities.
In Amersham, the party has never failed to gain over 50 per cent of the vote, while the Liberal Democrats have almost always been their closest competitors – yet only twice have they secured over 30 per cent of the vote.
The victory represents an astonishing swing for the constituency.
In 2019, the Conservatives held a 16,223 majority, but last night’s results mean the area swung 25 points away from them. With 57 per cent of the vote, the Liberal Democrats now have a commanding majority in the area.
But you only need to look back a couple of months to notice the potential for a major swing in the area.
The headlines after the May 6 local elections focused on the Conservatives’ impressive steal of Hartlepool from Labour.
The night marked a near crippling dent to Labour’s so-called Red Wall in northern England, with the party losing 119 councillors in the region, with the Tories gaining well over 100.
But further south, the Conservative’s Blue Wall was facing an attack of its own.
Across England, the Tories picked up councillors in every region with the exception of the South East.
There they lost 34 councillors, with their largest declines seen in areas the Conservatives have rarely felt threatened in.
The party saw its greatest losses in Oxfordshire, West Sussex and Wiltshire.
In Buckinghamshire, the home of the Chesham and Amersham constituency, the Conservatives lost 10 councillors, equating to 8 per cent of their share there.
The Conservatives are still comfortable across the south. In Surrey, for example, they lost 14 councillors – the biggest loss of the night – but still control almost two-thirds of the council.
But the warning signs are becoming clearer; if the party can lose over a fifth of their vote share in a constituency in one night, can they lose it elsewhere across the Blue Wall?
