'Everyone thought we would lose' says Chris Philp as Croydon South holds Tory seat

Chris Philp has held onto his Croydon South seat despite widespread losses across the UK.

The Croydon South MP was first elected to the solidly Tory seat back in 2015.

He won the seat with 19,757 votes and a majority of 2,313 – a significant drop on the majority at the previous election but beating the polling forecast which predicted a chance of a Labour win.

When asked why he managed to keep his seat despite his party’s losses across the country, he told the local democracy reporting service (LDRS): “That’s because we’ve worked really hard as a team for the local community and we’ve actually got things done and I think the public appreciate that. Everybody thought we were going to lose this.”

He added: “There are probably lessons for us nationally. When we make promises we need to make sure we deliver them, that’s what we’ve done in Croydon and I think we can learn from that nationally.”

On his party’s performance outside Croydon South, Philp told the LDRS: “Voters are clearly unhappy about a number of things, we need to respect that, we need to take it on board and we need to respond to it.”

As for his priorities for Croydon South, Philp said he will be working with Croydon’s Mayor Jason Perry to deliver the long-anticipated Purley Pool.

He also committed to supporting a new banking centre in Coulsdon and encouraging the police to deploy more officers in Croydon Town Centre.

Philp’s main challenger was Labour’s Ben Taylor, who almost failed to show for the election count results. He congratulated Philp on his victory after the count.

Taylor got 17,444 votes, 1,202 fewer than what Labour received in the 2019 election.