General election 2019: Conservatives sweep the board in Dorset

The Conservative Party has held all of its seats in Dorset.

Tory candidates won in Bournemouth East, Bournemouth West, Poole, Dorset Mid and Poole North, Dorset South, Dorset North and Christchurch.

Sir Oliver Letwin, who was one of 21 Tories to lose the party whip after voting against the prime minister's Brexit deal, decided not to stand in Dorset West.

His replacement, Chris Loder, beat his Labour opponent with a 14,106 majority.

Mr Loder praised his predecessor, who was known as a chief agitator in the last parliament for delaying the UK's departure from the EU until a no-deal Brexit had been ruled out.

"Sir Oliver Letwin has done an enormous amount of work as a constituency MP helping people with their issues and challenges," he said.

"We diverged on our position on Brexit - but I'm here as the MP for West Dorset to make sure we do get Brexit done."

The Tories won comfortably across the county, with the results similar to the 2017 general election.

Sir Christopher Chope, who who polled 33,894 votes in Christchurch, said: "I think the stables have been cleaned out, so to speak, and a lot of people who were not committed to the Brexit agenda are no longer Conservative MPs."

He said these MPs had been replaced with "a new, much larger group of Conservative MPs who are fully behind the prime minister".

International trade minister Conor Burns, a close ally of Boris Johnson, retained his Bournemouth West seat with 53.5% of the vote.

He said the party's success was "entirely at the door of Boris" and praised the prime minister for "connecting with the British public" in the build-up to polling day.

"I'm incredibly proud of the prime minister and what he's achieved in this campaign," he added.