Conservative minister Zac Goldsmith loses his seat to the Liberal Democrats in the UK election’s big ‘Portillo moment’

• Environment minister Zac Goldsmith has become the first Conservative minister to lose his seat in the general election.
• A close ally of Boris Johnson, Goldsmith lost in the Remain-voting constituency of Richmond Park, where he had a majority of just 45.
• The Conservatives are projected to win a crushing majority of over 60 seats.

Zac Goldsmith has become the first Conservative minister to lose his seat in the general election after the Liberal Democrats unseated him for the second time in two years.

Goldsmith, a close ally of Boris Johnson, lost in the Remain-voting constituency of Richmond Park in south-west London, where he had a tiny majority of just 45.

He was defeated by Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Olney, who briefly held the seat in 2016 and 2017 before it was recaptured by the Conservatives in 2017.

The result has been billed as a “Portillo moment,” a reference to the dramatic result in Enfield Southgate in 1997

dramatic declaration of the result for the Enfield Southgate constituency in the 1997 UK general election, which saw Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo lose his seat to Labour.

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Zac Goldsmith is the son of billionaire businessman Sir James Goldsmith, and held Richmond Park from 2010 until 2016 when he lost a by-election which he triggered after resigning in protest at the expansion of Heathrow.

He was re-elected to parliament in the snap election in 2017 when he defeated Sarah Olney.

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