Chris Philp is surprisingly re-elected as MP for Croydon South and hints at challenge to Tory leadership

A London Tory MP who retained his seat despite a surprise result has hinted that he may run to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of his party.

According to the BBC’s exit poll, Police Minister Chris Philp had only a one percent chance of retaining his Croydon South constituency.

But it was a big surprise for the Labour Party that Mr Philp retained his seat with a majority of 2,313 votes, compared to 12,339 votes at the last election.

Asked if he would run for the Conservative leadership, he said: “I haven’t even thought about it. Let’s just wait and see how the dust settles. But who knows?”

Commenting to the Standard shortly after his surprise victory, Mr Philp said: “At a national level, I will be focused on holding the new government to account and campaigning for lower taxes and a regulatory environment that allows businesses to flourish and prosper and lets people have more of their own money.”

“I will advocate for such things in Parliament.”

His constituency, which has voted exclusively Tories since its creation in 1974, had been heavily targeted by Labour. In a sign of how worried the Conservatives were about losing it, Rishi Sunak made a campaign visit on Tuesday.

The re-elected MP said: “All the MRP polls and the by-election poll said we were going to lose Croydon South.”

“We went against the trend and the results here were significantly better than in many other places in the country.”

He said he wanted to bring a new swimming pool to Purley, build a new medical centre and banking centre to Coulsdon and deploy more police in Croydon town centre to improve security.

The full results for London can be found here.

In our live blog you can follow the drama of the federal election results and find out about the latest developments.

Responding to the results nationally, Mr Philp said: “Fourteen years in power is quite a long time. I think there have been frustrations on issues such as tax and immigration.

“I think all of that has been on the voters’ minds, and I think we need to take that into account and respond to it.”

As for the borough’s other constituencies, Labour MP Steve Reed was re-elected in his newly drawn Streatham and Croydon North constituency and is now set to become Environment Secretary.

Sarah Jones, who was re-elected in the new Croydon West constituency, is set to become Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation.

In Croydon East, former Merton councillor Natasha Irons was elected for Labour, telling her supporters that the party’s landslide victory was an opportunity it “cannot afford to waste”.

The result in Croydon South in full:

Con hold

Rob Bromley (Reform) 4,149

Elaine Garrod (Green) 2,859

Richard Howard (Lib Democrats) 4,384

Kulsum Hussin (worker) 612

Chris Philp (Conservative) 19,757

Mark Samuel (Ind) 173

Ben Taylor (Labrador) 17,444

Majority 2,313