Tories' only gain in entire election: Shivani Raja wins seat after Keith Vaz and Claudia Webbe split vote
5 July 2024, 12:02 | Updated: 5 July 2024, 12:23
The Conservative Party have gained only one seat in the entire election after taking Leicester East from Labour, which has held the seat for 37 years.
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Shivani Raja is the new Tory MP for Leicester East after beating 9 candidates including incumbent Claudia Webbe and her predecessor Keith Vaz.
Ms Raja won 14,526 votes to clinch the seat, beating Labour's Rajesh Agrawal in second with 10,100 votes and Zuffar Haq third for the Liberal Democrats with 6,329.
Ms Webbe and Mr Vaz finished fourth and fifth respectively.
Ms Webbe won the Leicester East constituency in 2019 with 25,090 votes, a majority of 6,019 votes.
It comes after Labour secured a landslide election victory winning more than 410 seats while the Tories suffered huge losses, slumping to only 121 seats.
Mr Sunak will now go and visit King Charles to tender his official resignation after telling the nation: “I have heard your anger; your disappointment and I take full responsibility.”
In his speech, Mr Sunak paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer, whose party won an election landslide, calling him a "fundamentally decent man".
Sir Keir and his family "deserve the very best of our understanding as they make the huge transition to their new lives", he added.
Controversy has followed Ms Webbe and Mr Vaz throughout their political careers.
In 2021, Ms Webbe was convicted for harassing a love rival.
The victim told how Webbe branded her a "slag" who "should be acid" and threatened to reveal naked photographs to her family in a string of phone calls.
Ms Webbe, a former adviser to the National Police Chiefs' Council on firearms, was found guilty of harassment by Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring and handed a 10-week suspended jail sentence following a trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court last year.
She unsuccessfully appealed the conviction in 2022.
Ms Webbe was standing as an independent after being expelled from the Labour party over the conviction.
Meanwhile Mr Vaz was removed from the Labour party last month after announcing he would stand against an official Labour candidate in his old seat for a new party called One Leicester.
He was suspended for six months in 2019 over a drug probe.
A scathing Commons report at the time found he had caused "significant damage" to the reputation of the House after he “expressed willingness” to buy cocaine for male prostitutes.
