The London Borough of Havering remains mostly Conservative blue after election night. But the story has been the performance of the lighter blue Reform Party in its three constituencies – which will prompt soul-searching about the threat from the Tories’ right flank, in a part of London that remains culturally Essex in many respects.

Labour’s Margaret Mullane has comfortably retained the Dagenham and Rainham constituency for the party – but in line with much of London there was a slight decline in Labour’s vote share. Reform UK surged into second place in the constituency ahead of the Conservatives, winning just under a quarter of the vote.

In traditionally true-blue Romford, Andrew Rosindell suffered a scare as a result of another strong Reform showing, with the 18,000 Tory majority from the 2019 election cut to a margin of just under 1,500 votes over Labour, as Nigel Farage’s party claimed third place with over a fifth of the vote.

Hornchurch and Upminster saw the most striking result of the night, with Reform supplanting Labour as the closest challengers to the Conservative’s victorious candidate Julia Lopez. A 23,000 majority in 2019 was reduced to just under 2,000 votes between the Tories and Reform, with Labour closely behind.