Amid a tumultuous night and morning in British politics Gary Streeter has held his South West Devon seat with an increased share of the vote, but a reduced majority.

Mr Streeter won 31,634 votes, 59.8 per cent of the total cast, representing a 3.3 per cent increase on his showing at the 2015 election.

Labour’s much improved performance saw Philippa Davey earn 15,818 votes, a 13.3 per cent increase on 2015, up to 29.9 per cent of the total cast.

The Plymouth city councillor therefore cut Mr Streeter’s majority from more than 20,000 to 15,816.

The constituency was the first of three to ‘declare’ at the Plymouth City Council-run count at the Life Centre. Candidates, their agents, council staff, journalists and activists packed the centre’s huge sports hall for a night that saw high drama unfold. Labour’s Luke Pollard snatched Plymouth Sutton & Devonport from the Conservatives with a substantial majority, although the Tories held the Plymouth Moor View seat.

The results echoed a disastrous night nationally for the Conservatives, whose leader Theresa May had hoped to increase her majority in the House of Commons as a result of calling the snap election, just over two years after the last.

But this morning Mrs May, who called the election on April 18 at a time when she had a huge lead over Labour and leader Jeremy Corbyn in almost every poll, was forced to cobble together an alliance with the Democrat Unionist Party from Northern Ireland in order to try and form a government.

Mrs May, who promised repeatedly during the campaign to provide “strong and stable” leadership through the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, insisted she needed to remain in power, despite her party losing its commons majority, to provide “a period of stability”.

But Jeremy Corbyn and Labour will be celebrating today after a remarkable campaign that saw them transformed from a virtual laughing stock to a major force for change, and arguably the winners of last night’s poll after gaining 29 seats, up to 261.

The Conservatives lost 12 seats, but still have 318, short of the 326 needed for outright victory.

STREETER VICTORIOUS ONCE AGAIN

Speaking before the result was announced, then candidate Mr Streeter made what turned out to be an accurate prediction.

He commented: "The campaign in South West Devon has been fine, and I’ve helped out my colleagues in Plymouth as well. But nationally, I think it’s been a pretty disastrous campaign and I think we’re starting to see the results of that unfold, although it’s still early days.

"I suspect we may lose our majority and if that’s the case it will mean that our strategy has failed. I do however think that we’ll continue to govern."

Following the result Mr Streeter thanked acting returning officer Tracey Lee, chief executive of Plymouth City Council for the well-run count, as well as the police present on the night. He went on to thank his rival candidates for a “hard fought but very fair election”, saying they had all become friends, and he was “very much in favour of those kind of politics”.

He added thanks to his supporters, agent South Hams district councillor Mike Saltern, and the people of South West Devon for “placing their confidence in me once again”.

He pledged to work hard for all in the constituency, however they had voted, to try and improve the lives of everyone.

Mr Streeter continued: “I’d like to finish on this point: when I go and speak to schoolchildren and talk about democracy I say to them: politicians can make speeches, politicians can bring forward policies, but in the end the power lies with the people. And I guess tonight we are seeing another demonstration of that, the people of this country have done something that some of us didn’t want them to do, but it’s their choice in this free democracy to do as they wish. That’s the wonder and the joy of democracy, and long may it be so.”

Speaking shortly afterwards, Mr Streeter said: “It’s a privilege to be reelected to South West Devon. I pledge myself to keep on working hard for the people of Plympton, Plymstock and the chunk of the glorious South Hams that I represent, and working with other people, working with Johnny Mercer and the newly elected Labour MP in the centre of Plymouth to do our best for this region.”

And the veteran MP added: “This is my 7th general election. I’m 61, still young enough I hope. If Parliament goes full term I can certainly give four or five years of my best service.

“If there’s another election I shall certainly seek to stand again, I feel I’ve got five good years left in me before I put my slippers on.”

LABOUR'S PHILIPPA DAVEY GAINS IN SOUTH WEST DEVON

Reacting to the result Labour candidate Philippa Davey said: “Yes I’m very pleased, I didn’t expect it to be as much as that but it’s really nice that people in South West Devon have shown they’re not happy about everything.

“They’ve said that at the ballot box and I’m looking forward to holding Gary to account over the next few months. There’ll probably be another election soon I’d imagine, so maybe he’ll be a little bit scared…or not.”

Responding to Labour colleague Luke Pollard’s snatching of the previously Tory Plymouth Sutton & Devonport seat, Ms Davey added: “That’s an absolutely resounding victory. It was amazing to be able to vote for Luke myself, to be able to vote for a candidate that offers us lots of hope instead of more austerity, someone who will stand up for Plymouth every day.

“I feel quite sorry for Oliver [Colville, defeated Conservative candidate], obviously he’s committed to Plymouth, but the choices he’s made we don’t agree with. And people have voted overwhelmingly for Luke and the Labour party, so yes, stoked about that.”

A RETURN TO TWO-PARTY POLITICS?

Third placed was Liberal Democrat Caroline Voaden with 2,732 votes, a 2.3 per cent dip for the party at 5.2 per cent of the ballots cast.

She said: “It was clearly not as good as we had hoped, obviously Labour have had an amazing night and I just don’t think we could compete with that kind of national groundswell of support that they got.

“But I’m really pleased to see there’s going to be a change of direction. I’m excited by the prospect of a hung parliament, I think that will be good for the smaller parties, and yeah - politics gets more and more interesting.”

THE "GUARDIANS OF BREXIT"

UKIP’s Ian Ross was fourth with 1,540, a substantial 11.6 per cent drop on the party’s result in 2015.

He said: “I think really it’s what we expected, that the Conservatives would take quite a lot of our vote, and that’s reflected in how much our vote has dropped in the three Plymouth seats.

“I think people will look at this now and say, with the results around the country, maybe all this lending votes to other parties doesn’t get you what you want. I think our supporters will revisit that in the future, because there will, I suspect be a general election in the not too distant future.

“So disappointing overall for the party but not unexpected, we live to fight again. Obviously Brexit itself is in mortal danger now, so that’s where we, as the guardians of Brexit as Mr Nuttall says, come in.”

GREENS WELCOME “SOFTENING” OF THE UKIP / TORY "HARD RIGHT"

Green Win Scutt, with 1,133, was fifth, the Green’s performance down 2.6 per cent on the last election.

He said: “I’m still trying to digest what’s happened, because it’s different all across the country. We can see there are two completely different results for Moor View and Sutton and Devonport, one’s gone more Tory, one’s gone more Labour and it’s really interesting.

“I’m not sure what’s happening there - where are the UKIP voters switching to? Are they switching to Labour? And what’s the effect of the student vote in Sutton & Devonport? Is it the young voters, as Luke Pollard said, is that what clinched it?

“I think in the hours and days to come we’re going to start to understand that, but at the moment it’s just too early to say what’s happened. I’m a little bit disappointed for the Green Party because we’ve dropped a little, but we’re ever present.

“The worst thing for me would have been an increased majority for the Tories. Funnily enough I’m also disappointed for the Liberal Democrats, because they picked up some of our policies. The Greens have been coming up with lots of good ideas, we’ve got some good people in the party, and we’re finding that other parties are picking them up, and that’s great because we’re having an influence on politics.

“So I’m a bit disappointed for the Lib Dems, because of course we want to see another referendum, as they do on Brexit, giving people the choice on the terms, and even possibly to avoid Brexit altogether. We want to give people that choice and the Lib Dems have picked that policy up as well, whereas Labour haven’t.

“So it’s mixed feelings, but at least this hard right domination by UKIP, even though they’ve been assimilated into the Tories, has been softened a bit.”