Former Defence Minister James Heappey has said the election exit poll might be over-optimistic for the Conservatives and that all Tory MPs will have played a part in the defeat.
Asked why the campaign has gone so badly wrong for the Tories, he told GB News: “Hubris. Conceit. An election called at the wrong time. But whenever you call it this year, a result of this sort was coming.
“The worst thing is that number of Reform MPs and that number of Lib Dem MPs in the exit poll suggests to me the 131 [for the Conservatives] might be still a little high.
“It just feels to me that we're going to end up with a number a bit below that.
“This is an incredible rejection of what Brandon [Lewis] and our colleagues have delivered in government over the last five years.
“And every single one of us, whether we think that we were part of the various cliques that brought down one Prime Minister or another, whichever wing of the party we're on: if anybody is sat there watching this tonight as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 2019 to 2024 and saying, ‘nothing to do with me, guv’, they're kind of missing the point.
“This is a whole party moment of introspection and reflection.”
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