LABOUR candidate John Kent warned Conservative Jackie Doyle-Price that ‘he is not going anywhere’ and believes they are on course for a rematch later this year.

The former leader of Thurrock Council narrowly lost out to Ms Doyle-Price by just 345 votes - increasing his party’s share of the votes by an extra 3,379 votes.

Unperturbed, Mr Kent has vowed to return and believes the Tories failure to secure a majority makes another election a distinct possibility.

He said: “I want to start by warmingly congratulating Jackie, as Jackie said ‘I am still here’, and I am not going anywhere.

“There is every chance that we will be back here before the end of this year. In the intervening time, I will give you a hard time. “I will be watching you, I will be scrutinising you and I am going to be making sure I hold you to account.

“I want to echo Jackie’s thanks to the counting staff for a really efficient count. When things are this close, you need to make sure people are on top of their game and everybody was.

“So I also thank my campaign time as well as everybody who has worked tirelessly over the past few weeks.

“If you had said to me before the start of the election that I would add more than 3,000 votes from 2015, I would have been confident of winning.

“It wasn’t good enough, thank you to my family for all the support and encouragement they have given me, not just over the past few weeks, but over the years.”

Liberal Democrat Kevin McNamara, who was fighting his first Thurrock campaign failed to show at the count in Purfleet as he recorded a fourth place finish.

Meanwhile third-placed Tim Aker, Ukip’s candidate left before the result declaration after sharing warm embraces with his campaign team, who conceded defeat.

Clearly upset, Mr Aker declined several requests by the Echo for an interview on election night, citing “tiredness” after a hard fought campaign as a reason for refusal.