Stella Creasy has been re-elected as MP for Walthamstow but says she is ‘absolutely gutted’ at how Labour has performed across the UK.

The Labour MP, who has held the seat since 2010, secured 36,784 votes, down from the 38,793 votes she secured in 2017.

Ms Creasy, who has lived in Walthamstow for over 20 years, said she was “completely honoured” to have been re-elected.

“It’s my home, it’s where I have my family. I love this community and to represent it is an honour”, she said.

“But I know people need more than a Labour MP they need a Labour government and I’m obviously absolutely gutted tonight that it looks like we haven’t won and it looks like we have lost a lot of very good Labour MPs, who I know were also helping make a massive difference for the people of Walthamstow.”

Ms Creasy, who was joined on stage for her acceptance speech by her new-born daughter Hettie, said the party needed to examine leadership, policies, and organisation, as early results showed Labour had performed poorly across the UK – “We are losing really good colleagues”, she said.

“We owe it to the British public to ask those very difficult questions about how we work.

“We have had ten years of Tory governments that have imposed austerity on communities like this. I see it in my case work, I see the people who are in debt, the people who are losing their homes, the jobs that they just don’t have any more.

“We are now facing the prospect of a very hard Brexit as well which is going to leave us a lot worse and to have not won over the British public that there is an alternative.

“I know I am going to fight for the next five years to protect Walthamstow as much as possible, but the best protection would be a Labour government and we owe it to the people to ask the question about how we have not managed to do that this time around.”

Turnout for Walthamstow this year was 69.1 per cent; in 2017 71.4 per cent of registered voters voted.

Conservative candidate Shade Adoh picked up the second most votes, with 5,922 while Liberal Democrat Meera Chadha won 2,874 votes.

Andrew Johns, of the Green party secured 1,733 votes, the Brexit Party’s Paul Campbell won 768, and Deborah Longe of the Christian Peoples Alliance , 254.