The Green Party achieved the best result in its history, with four MPs being elected — including its two co-leaders.
Siân Berry — the former London mayoral candidate, who gave up a £62,761 salary by quitting the London Assembly a day after being re-elected in May to concentrate on retaining the Brighton Pavilion constituency for the party — was also elected.
Victories for co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay in Bristol Central and Waveney Valley, and for Ellie Chowns in Herefordshire North, delivered a spectacular result for the Greens and meant it met its own ambitious targets of winning four seats.
Ms Denyer defeated Labour’s shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire by a thumping 10,407 majority after polling 24,539 votes. She polled 57.7 per cent of the vote and overturned a 16,000 Labour majority, with a swing from Labour to Green of 28 per cent.
She told the BBC: “I’m feeling over the moon and so grateful.”
Ms Berry, whose victory was the last of the four to be announced, said she was “absolutely floored”. She polled 28,809 votes, beating her nearest challenger, Labour’s Tom Gray, by a majority of 14,290.
Paying tribute to her predecessor, she said she was “standing on the shoulders of giants”.
Ms Berry, a former Camden councillor, said: “We set our sights really high in this election and we've achieved everything that we set out to do. That feels incredibly good. It shows that there's people out there really, really ready and crying out for our message.
"We've got a change of Government but that doesn't change very much unless we can get some of the ideas in our manifesto into Labour's programme. That's what we're working on."
The Greens stood in 574 seats, more than ever before. Nationwide, they received about two million votes, about seven per cent of all ballots cast.
Mr Ramsey, who overturned a Tory majority of 22,000, said: “It’s incredible. We have won all four of our target seats. People have responded very positively to us putting forward a positive vision.
“We have just had our most successful set of results ever in the Green Party, going from one MP to four.”
In London, the Greens took second place in constituencies including Leyton & Wanstead, Lewisham East and Walthamstow
Ms Denyer, a former engineer, said "Bristol had made history" by electing her to Parliament as a Green Party MP.
Ms Debbonaire had represented the former Bristol West seat, which was renamed after boundary changes, since 2015. She had been tipped for a place in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet.
