Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith was the great survivor on a night when Conservative seats fell like nine pins — benefiting from an internal Labour row splitting the vote against him.
The MP for Chingford & Woodford Green hung on with a majority of 4,757 over his Labour rival Shama Tatler who only narrowly beat her predecessor as the party’s candidate, Faiza Shaheen.
The contest in east London hit the headlines when Labour dropped Ms Shaheen as its candidate in the run-up to the election after she was accused of liking a series of posts that allegedly downplayed antisemitism allegations.
That prompted her to launch an independent campaign — complete with the celebrity backing of snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan — and she was scathing about Labour’s decision to deselect her which she said gifted the election to Sir Iain.
Attacking Labour after the result was announced, she said: “They’ve let my community down. I’m so angry with them right now. That shouldn’t have happened.”
She told reporters Labour “lied” to voters, adding: “They told people there was no chance I could win.”
Ms Shaheen, who grew up in the constituency, said people would be “disappointed to have Iain Duncan Smith over again” but praised the “grassroots” campaign that backed her and accused Labour of ignoring the constituency’s wishes. She said: “You imposed a candidate that no one knew.
“You thought it didn’t matter, you thought you could treat me and treat our community any way you wanted to treat us but we’ve stood up and we said no.
“We did something remarkable, we came together and we had each other’s backs and you need to remember this, parachuting in candidates and trying to destroy someone’s life hasn’t done anything and it’s not ok and people will stand up if you carry on like this.”
Ms Shaheen was the party’s candidate in 2019 when she came within 1,262 votes of beating Mr Duncan-Smith.
The leading Conservative Brexiteer has been MP since the current seat was created in 1997 and it has long been a Conservative stronghold with parts of the constituency being represented at different times by former prime minister Winston Churchill and leading Thatcherite Norman Tebbit.
