DAME Priti Patel has been re-elected as Witham’s Member of Parliament after the constituency voted Conservative.

Dame Priti Patel won the Witham constituency count by a large margin, with 18,827 votes, beating Labour’s Rumi Chowdhury, who came second with 13,682 votes.

Timothy Blaxill, of Reform UK did not attend the count but was placed third with 9,870 votes.

The Green Party’s James Abbott received 3,539 votes, and Derrick Thompson of the Liberal Democrats earned 3,439 votes.

Independent candidate Chelsey Jay, who is also a disability activist, received 1,246 votes in total.

Dame Priti took to the podium at Tabor Academy shortly after 6.30am as the result was announced.

She said: “I would like to say an enormous thank you to the hundreds of people who have been involved with the election within this district and across the Witham constituency.

“So many people have been involved in making this result happen. I would like to thank all the officials and our fabulous police who have done so much to keep us safe throughout the entire campaign.

“And then of course my entire association, our members, diligent hard workers, people who have been knocking on doors, day in day out - without them this election result would not be possible.

“I do want to thank all the candidates that stood in the Witham constituency for this General Election.

“This has effectively been almost a festival of democracy if I may so, but we’ve had a good-natured campaign and there is something very unique about this district, but also the constituency in the way we have all conducted ourselves in this campaign.

“It is an absolute privilege to be re-elected to become the Member of Parliament for the Witham constituency.

"It is an incredible constituency. This part of Essex is so unique - it really is.

“Yes, it has its challenges, yes we all have worked hard to do good things for our local communities, but when we reflect upon the national result right now, there is a moment to just have a stock take and a pause.

“Thank you to everybody for your support, within the constituency across Witham. You have put your trust, faith and confidence in me, and I can absolutely say that I will stand up to that, live up to that, and deliver for them.”

To watch Dame Patel’s full acceptance speech, see the video below.