Greg Smith has been declared the new MP for Mid Buckinghamshire, beating Liberal Democrat candidate Anja Schaefer, who finished second.

Smith, 45, who was most recently the MP for Buckingham, emerged from the July 4 vote with a majority of 5,872.

The new Tory MP won 20,150 votes, while Schaefer finished with 14,278 and Labour’s Carissma Griffiths in third with 9,171.

In his victory speech, Smith spoke of his ‘three little boys who often miss their daddy’ and, choking back tears, also paid tribute to his late grandparents.

Speaking of his children, Smith said: “I do it for them and I do it for every child to get a better future for this country.”

He then added: “I also thank my wife, my parents and lastly, I dedicate this victory here in Mid Buckinghamshire tonight to two people who meant the world to me who we lost during the pandemic, my grandparents.”

After his speech, Smith told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that he would ‘get his elbows out and fight for what is right for Buckinghamshire and the country’.

He said: “That means protecting our countryside, putting food security first, stopping development on our agricultural land.”

Smith called for new developments to be built on brownfield sites in towns and cities rather than on Green Belt land.

The newly elected MP also commented on his party’s huge losses across the country as Labour secured a historic landslide victory.

He said: “It’s been a really difficult night for my party, and I’ve had difficult conversations on the doorsteps here.

“I am delighted to have won my own seat but there is no denying that across the country we have had a real kicking.

“We have to reflect on that, and we need to understand off the back of those conversations across the country, why it is that the British public have fallen out of love with us at the moment.”

Meanwhile a smiling Schaefer told the LDRS that she was ‘delighted’ to have finished second in Mid Buckinghamshire and won so many votes.

She said: “This is a new constituency and we have actually come fairly close because last time in the Buckingham constituency Greg Smith got 20,000 votes over the Lib Dems. Now it’s only 5,000.”

The Buckinghamshire councillor, who is a senior lecturer in management at the Open University said she would ‘go home and sleep’.

She added: “In the immediate future I think I might sleep a bit more and then I might cut my lawn and spend a bit of time with family. Then afterwards, we shall start working towards the local elections next year.”

Reform UK candidate Steph Harwood finished fourth in Mid Bucks with 6,926 votes, trailed by the Green Party’s Greg Smith on 2,942, Yvonne Wilding (Social Democratic Party) on 337 and Wisdom Methodious Da Costa (Climate Party) on 147.

Provisional voter turnout in the Mid Buckinghamshire was 72 per cent out of an electorate of 75,622. The number of ballot papers verified in the seat was 54,182.

The seat is a new constituency at this election, having been created from large parts of Aylesbury and Buckingham.

📢 "Why wait for news? With Bucks Free Press get real-time updates directly on our ad-free app. Subscribe for unlimited access to our digital edition and enjoy 80% fewer ads on our website. Click here to find out more about how to get your news, your way, every day. #UnlimitedNews #AdLightExperience" 📢