The key battleground of Croydon Central is being predicted to fall Labour’s way according to one Labour councillor at the vote.
The seat was the fourth closest in the country in the 2015 general election, with just 165 votes between Conservative winner Gavin Barwell and Labour’s Sarah Jones.
Sean Fitzsimons, Labour councillor for the Addiscombe ward has been among the counters and said: “Signs are very encouraging – we haven’t seen a bad box yet.”
He also put out an optimistic tweet, showing a confident team in the ward campaign room.
Feel confident to tweet this photo from @Addiscombefirst campaign room for @LabourSJ Croydon Central #ge17< a href=”https://t.co/8JhZABa9ot”>pic.twitter.com/8JhZABa9ot
— Sean Fitzsimons (@CroydonSean) June 8, 2017
Conservative candidate Barwell was less hopeful about the result on Twitter, describing what could be a ‘bad night’ ahead in a reply to a tweet.
Thanks for bringing a smile to my face on what looks like being a bad night
— Gavin Barwell (@BackBarwell) June 8, 2017
Counting is still at stage one – the verification process, where the boxes are tipped out and placed into bundles of 50 – and the total number of votes cast is confirmed and will progress to stage two in around 30 minutes.
Mr Fitzsimons added: “It does look like the metropolitan voters who are pro-remain are having their revenge tonight.”
And Peter Ladany, former chairman of the Croydon Liberal Democrats, confirmed that Labour were also doing well in Croydon North – a safe Labour seat – and also in Croydon South, which is a strong Conservative seat.
He claimed that the Liberal Democrats have suffered in Croydon because they have been focusing their campaigning in Sutton.
