Damian was this morning re-elected as the MP for East Hampshire. In his acceptance speech he said the following:
Thank you to the voters of the new East Hampshire constituency for the trust that you have put in me to be your elected representative.
I will strive to repay that trust in the work that I do for you, for every one of you, however you voted, in the casework we pick up, and working with our brilliant local organisations, and being your voice in the House of Commons.
I’m conscious that there has been a seismic result in British politics today, tonight, this morning.
Parliamentary democracy needs strong Opposition. As we congratulate the new government and wish them well in the interests of our country, it is also very important we have a strong Opposition that holds them to account, and I intend to play my full part in that as well.
It has clearly been a very difficult night for my party. I have lost a number of good colleagues and good friends.
At least nobody can say that, in this election, the result being a Labour government came as a great surprise, and it’s very important when you are the losing party in that race that you take the result with due humility and you recognise the mistakes that you made, the things you have done wrong.
It’s also very important for my party that we take time - time to consider, and to decide how we rebuild. All the single-sentence explanations of what’s happened in this election, they may be partly right, but none of them is wholly right. It’s a more complicated situation, and as I say it takes time.
Good news is our local democracy is strong and we have had a very healthy turnout here in East Hampshire. We also have fantastic volunteers manning all the different parties’ campaigns, and I want to pay tribute to them from every party - everybody who has licked a stamp, put a letter in an envelope, stuck it through a letter box, knocked on a door. All of these things make our grass roots democracy.
I also want to thank my fellow candidates. We’ve had a robust debate, we’ve had a very good debate, but it’s always been a campaign that’s been conducted with positivity and with mutual respect.
Particularly congratulations are due to Dominic Martin and his team, who have fought an incredibly strong campaign, and I wish Dominic all the best for the future - he is an incredibly talented man.
I also want to thank the returning officer, those of you who have been counting the votes, all those manning the polling stations, the presiding officers, the polling agents and the police.
I want to thank my brilliant campaign team, and my family. As politicians we ask our families to deal with a lot and mine have been incredibly supportive of me.
It remains the most enormous honour and privilege, and the heaviest responsibility, to represent East Hampshire in parliament, and I am eternally grateful to you for allowing me to do that.
Thank you.
