There were hugs and tears all around as long-standing MP Tom Brake was narrowly beaten in Carshalton and Wallington by the new Conservative candidate Elliot Colburn.

Mr Colburn said he was “over the moon” and “honoured and humbled” by the win, which, after a partial recount, saw him win by a slim majority of 629 after receiving 20,822 votes.

It was announced late into the night that he had recieved 42.4% of the vote, and in his winning speech, Elliot paid tribute to the Lib Dem candidate’s stellar 22 years of service.

Your Local Guardian spoke to the new MP Colburn minutes after his victory was announced.

How do you feel right now?

“Over the moon, it truly is an honour to represent your home town. I’m absolutely elated, I’m not even sure it’s sunk in yet, but I’m sure it will over the next couple of days and I’m looking forward to getting into work. It’s surreal, I’m so delighted to have this opportunity, I’m honoured and humbled by the opportunity people have given me, and so I don’t take the job likely, and I will get work to straight away.”

What's the first thing you’ll do as MP?

“On Monday morning I’m in Parliament, so I will learn the ropes, and I think it’s straight to the day job for me. I know we have Christmas coming up but there is no excuse, I’m going to get my team sorted as quickly as we can so we can tackle local concerns as well as get involved in some of those bigger campaigns such as more funding for the St Helier hospital.”

What’s the biggest challenge you face?

“The biggest challenge that we’ve got locally is ensuring that we actually deliver the improvements to our local health and public services. We need to make sure we get the money now promised to our NHS front line gets there and that we actually deliver, improve the local hospitals that we have, but also build that new hospital we so desperately need.”

Why did people vote the way they did today?

“For a number of reasons. Brexit has obviously dominated this election in the national media and there was an element of it locally, what is a well known fact is this a leave voting area. However, it has been represented by a Liberal Democrat who wanted to revoke article 50. I don’t think people were incredibly happy about their vote being threatened to be overturned, but there were a number of issues. In the Beddington area people, were very angry about things such as the incinerator, in St Helier it was parking, but more than that, I don’t think this was a vote against what people didn’t like, but also a vote for that positive domestic agenda, and I’m pleased we’ve finally got that majority in parliament to finally break the deadlock and get things moving again.”

Lib Dem’s Tom Brake in his speech vowed that the party would come back, locally and nationally and talking to Your Local Guardian he was extremely critical about the future of the Conservative majority government.

Mr Brake said: “Clearly it was a very sad result, in a very very hard fought campaign. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done both in the constituency and in the last 20 years, the way people have been represented by liberal democrats.

“I’m confident that we can do it again, and we will do it again. We have a large base here, we have a large number of very committed activists and voters, and I am confident in the next few years we’ll come back.

“A Boris Johnson government is a government that makes mistakes, and which cannot blame anyone else for the mistake they’re going to make. I don’t think Boris Johnson is a prime minister who has the best interests of the public at heart, I think he has only ever had his own, and I think that will show itself in the years to come.”