Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party are hoping to deliver a second political earthquake just weeks after being founded and topping the polls in EU parliament elections by electing their first MP.
The new party are on the brink pulling off the political upset and snatch the ultra-marginal seat of Peterborough from the grasp of Labour and the Conservatives.
But as polls closed in the by-election, Labour activists who had spent the last few weeks bracing for defeat were keen to stress that the party was still in the running in what senior party figures called a “tight contest”.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have campaigned hard ahead of the Thursday’s by-election, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, former prime minister Gordon Brown and Tory big guns Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt all visiting the city in the lead-up.
But Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which won 29 seats in the European elections, has also campaigned hard in its first tilt at a Westminster seat.
Labour and the Brexit Party have jostled for position as the bookmakers’ favourite with some local branches no longer taking bets on the Brexit Party’s Mike Greene, a local businessman and ex-Tory, winning the seat.
The election was triggered by the ousting of MP Fiona Onasanya, who won the seat for Labour in 2017 but was later jailed after lying over a speeding offence.
It left the party facing an uphill battle in the seat, where 60.9% of voters backed Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.
Follow developments from the count live below
