UK election: Rupa Huq wins huge majority

Rupa Huq has retained the Ealing Central and Acton seat for Labour in the 2017 UK General Election with a significantly increased majority.

Rupa was elected in the 2015 UK general election from this seat and was a senior lecturer at the sociology department of the Kingston University. Her ancestral home is in northern Pabna district, Bangladesh.

She won 13,807 more votes than the Conservative candidate Joy Morrissey in a constituency that she had previously held by just over 200 votes.

The result was declared earlier in the night than was expected as a disastrous night for the Conservatives unfolded. Expectations of a landslide when the election was announced were quickly evaporating into fears of a hung parliament.

The contest had been fractious with her Conservative opponent threatening legal action over the content of Labour election leaflets which she claimed contained falsehoods about her views on the NHS and Brexit.

She seems to have benefited from her defiance of the Labour party whip when she voted against Article 50. 72% of her constituents were against leaving the EU in the referendum last year. Anecdotally a higher turnout from younger voters boosted her support including from students who registered themselves in the previously highly marginal constituency rather than their university town.

She also was boosted by the withdrawal of the Green Party candidate and the revelation that senior Liberal Democrat figures had urged party members to vote for her rather than their own candidate Jon Ball.