Conservatives seats wiped out in Oxfordshire

The Conservatives lost all four of their seats in Oxfordshire, including one held by the party for more than a century.

Liberal Democrat Charlie Maynard defeated Tory Robert Courts to win Witney, the seat previously held by former Conservative prime minister David Cameron until 2016.

The Lib Dems also won the new seats of Henley and Thame, Bicester and Woodstock and Didcot and Wantage, while the party’s Layla Moran comfortably held onto Oxford West and Abingdon.

Victoria Prentis, the attorney general in Rishi Sunak’s government, lost Banbury to Sean Woodcock in what is Labour’s first victory in the constituency.

Banbury had been won by a Conservative MP at every general election since 1922.

Calum Miller, a former advisor to Nick Clegg when he was deputy prime minister, won Bicester and Woodstock for the Lib Dems.

He defeated Conservative Rupert Harrison, himself a former advisor to George Osborne when he was chancellor.

Polling had suggested that the seat would be a close fight – but Mr Miller, an Oxfordshire county councillor, won with 19,419 votes and a reasonably comfortable majority of 4,958.

In Witney, Mr Maynard, a Lib Dem cabinet member on West Oxfordshire District Council, beat Mr Courts by 4,339 votes.

Mr Courts had won the seat with a majority of 15,177 over the Lib Dems at the 2019 general election.

The constituency had been won by a Conservative MP at every general election since it was established in 1983.

In Didcot and Wantage, Olly Glover won the seat for the Lib Dems, winning 21,793 votes. Conservative MP for Wantage from 2019, David Johnston, won 15,560.

In Henley and Thame – largely made up of the former Henley constituency – another Lib Dem Oxfordshire county councillor, Freddie van Mierlo, is the new MP.

Henley was previously held by former prime minister Boris Johnson between 2001 and 2008 and Tory grandee Michael Heseltine from 1974 until 2001.

Its Conservative MP John Howell stepped down before Thursday’s general election.

Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds, who is likely to be part of new prime minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet, held her Oxford East seat.

Ms Dodds won 19,541 votes and her closest challenger, the Green Party’s Sushila Dhall, received 5,076 votes.

In Banbury, Mr Woodcock, the Labour group leader on Cherwell District Council, won 18,468 votes, with Mrs Prentis winning 15,212 votes.

At the 2019 general election, Mrs Prentis won 34,148 votes and had a majority of 16,813 over Labour.