Battle among Conservative factions following disastrous election showing

Competing factions of the Conservative Party have begun battling over its future after a disastrous night for the incumbents.

Once a Tory leadership hopeful and the woman who fronted her party’s campaign on TV debates this year, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt has lost the Portsmouth North seat she was contesting – and warned her colleagues against “talking to an ever smaller slice” of the party.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman has said “sorry” for her party’s record in government in her victory speech, while Sir Robert Buckland – the former justice secretary who lost Swindon South to Labour – has suggested a lurch to the right “would be a disastrous mistake and it would send us into the abyss, and gift Labour government for many years”.

Among the Cabinet ministers to lose their seats overnight were Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, to Labour, and Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer to the Liberal Democrats.

Jeremy Hunt has won the Godalming and Ash seat in Surrey, while Rishi Sunak remains an MP in North Yorkshire – in Richmond and Northallerton.

The Prime Minister conceded defeat in his victory speech and said: “The Labour Party has won this General Election, and I’ve called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory. Today, power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner, with goodwill on all sides.

“That is something that should give us all confidence in our country’s stability and future.

“The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight, there is much to learn… and I take responsibility for the loss. To the many good, hard-working Conservative candidates who lost tonight, despite their tireless efforts, their local records and delivery, and their dedication to their communities. I am sorry.”

Ms Braverman said “I’m sorry” twice during her speech.

“I’m sorry that my party didn’t listen to you,” she said.

“(The) Conservative Party has let you down. You – the Great British people voted for us over 14 years and we did not keep our promises. We’ve acted as if we’re entitled to your vote regardless of what we did, regardless of what we didn’t do, despite promising time after time that we would do those things and we need to learn our lesson because if we don’t, bad as tonight has been for my party, we’ll have many worse nights to come.”

Thanking voters in her constituency, Ms Braverman said they were “patriotic, common sense, kindly, dedicated, enterprising”.

The Hampshire MP wrote a Telegraph article earlier this week with the headline: “It’s over, we have failed.”

Asked about it, Sir Robert told the BBC: “I am afraid that is not an isolated example.”

He added: “We can see articles being written before a vote is cast at the General Election about the party heading for defeat and what the prognosis should be.

“It is spectacularly unprofessional, ill-disciplined.”

Mr Shapps, who lost his Welwyn Hatfield seat to Labour, said his party had an “inability to iron out (its) differences” amid and endless “soap opera”.

Ms Mordaunt said: “Tonight, the Conservative Party has taken a battering because it failed to honour the trust that people had placed in it. You can speak all you like of security and freedom, but you can’t have either if you are afraid.

“Afraid about the cost-of-living or accessing healthcare, or whether the responsibility you shoulder will be recognised and rewarded. That fear steals the future, and it only makes the present matter and that is why we lost.

“Our renewal as a party and a country will not be achieved by us talking to an ever smaller slice of ourselves but being guided by the people of our country. And if we want again to be the natural party of government, then our values must be the people’s.”

As Labour hit its 300-seat mark shortly before 5am, the Conservatives had won just 58.

Reform UK had won four seats after its leader Nigel Farage said in a speech in Clacton, Essex: “There is a massive gap on the centre-right of British politics and my job is to fill it.”