The Conservatives increased their majority in Faversham and Mid Kent to 21,976 votes.

Helen Whately was again elected as the area's MP with 31,864 people backing her in the poll.

The Tory finished comfortably ahead of Labour's Jenny Reeves, who won 9,888 votes, Hannah Perkin of the Lib Dems with 6,170 and Hannah Temple from the Green Party who collected 2,103.

The independent Gary Butler won 369 votes as the result was declared at 3.35am.

She also significantly improved on her majority from the 2017 election, which was 17,413.

Mrs Whately told us after: "What was clear is that although it was a winter election and people were worried about that putting people off voting, in fact, people feel really strongly about the political situation at the moment.

"I heard a lot on the doorsteps that people want us to get Brexit done, they want us to move forwards, they don't like us being stuck and don't feel parliament is working for them."

Responding to claims the Conservatives' campaign was overshadowed by smears and misinformation, she added: "I was really excited when I saw the three main challengers for me in the constituency were all women so it was great to be up against them, I was really looking forward to that being a fair and decent fight.

"It was a bit disappointing in practice because it didn't always turn out to be that way and I'm sorry that at times it got a bit nasty.

"I hope that in future people will fight fairer, for a decent style of politics.

"I always try to make sure you're campaigning on policy and on principles and values rather than personal things."

Our reporter Tom Pyman has been at the count at the Kent Event Centre in Detling, providing updates via the @KM_Newsroom and @TomPymanKM Twitter accounts.

Turnout for the constituency has been confirmed as 69%, with votes being counted by 16 teams of six assistants, each with a supervisor, from some 62 ballot boxes.

Votes are initially verified and then there are two further stages where polling papers are first counted into batches of 100 and then separated into how the votes were cast.

Mrs Whately was joined at the count by three of her challengers, but not Mr Butler.

Mrs Reeves had earlier insisted it was "all to play for" after cheers emerged from her camp as news filtered through of Rosie Duffield's victory in Canterbury.

Follow our live blog for details on the results across Kent as they come in.

To see who was elected in Faversham and Mid Kent in 2017, click here.

For all other General Election news, click here.

Read more: All the latest news from Faversham