VICTORIOUS Peter Kyle issued a word of caution following Labour’s successful election result.

The returned Hove MP said Labour remained the second party to the weakest, most indecisive and incompetent Tory Party in modern history.

He praised leader Jeremy Corbyn’s resilience and sure-footedness during the campaign but warned it was vital that the party now found a way to bring a deeply divided country back together.

Mr Kyle massively increased his majority with a thumping win in what was one of his party’s most at-risk seats.

The defending MP was a star performer in a night of highlights for Labour by turning the marginal into a safe seat.

He was defending Labour’s 13th smallest majority in the country of just 1,236 votes but grew that to more than 18,000 votes.

His 36,942 total is the highest by a Hove MP since 1959.

Of his party leader, he said: “We saw a Jeremy Corbyn in this election that surpassed expectations, it was the best we could imagine he could be.

“He was more resilient and sure-footed than I had expected him to be and he was confronted by a Tory Party that is weaker and more indecisive and more incompetent than I ever experienced in my lifetime and any period in modern history.

“Yet they still beat us in overall numbers in the Parliament system that we have so that is also a warning to us not to take for granted the degree of public support.

“We are in unprecedently complex landscape and we have to figure it out over the next few days.”

Conservative Kristy Adams came second with 18,185, losing 2,600 from two years ago.

Tory campaigners were at a loss to explain the huge growth in Labour’s numbers while Ms Adams refused to talk to The Argus after the result.

Carrie Hynds came in third with 1,311 votes for the Liberal Democrats, a 30 per cent drop on 2015 but only around a tenth of the votes the party held in 2010.

Brighton and Hove City Councillor Phelim MacCafferty was the biggest victim of the Labour surge with the Green Party’s 971 votes less than a third of the 3,569 the party won just two years ago.

Labour were runaway winners in the Green wards of Goldsmid and Brunswick and Adelaide but took votes away from all parties including running the Conservatives close in the stronghold of Hove Park.

The size of the majority shocked even Mr Kyle’s campaign team, which had been concerned the seat could be vulnerable if the 3,265 votes in 2015 for Ukip, who did not field a candidate this time around, went to the Tories.

Ukip’s Stuart Bower said: “It’s a myth to think that all Ukip voters are disgruntled Tories. Those ex-Labour Ukip supporters went back for Peter Kyle.

“With this result I think Ukip will rise back twice as powerful as we’ve ever been.

“Theresa May has done what politicians have done for years and taken her core supporters for granted.

“She’s taken defeat from the jaws of almost certain victory.”

Independent Charley Sabel came fifth with 187 votes.

Among the successes of Mr Kyle’s campaign, the strongly pro-EU candidate was able to attract Remain-voting Conservative supporters including life-long Tories.

His team added that Mr Kyle’s strong campaigning on Southern Rail had also reaped rewards.

Labour also had a huge ground campaign which outgunned the smaller Conservative team, including a 600-strong group on polling day.

Mr Kyle said the victory was “not sweeter” than his maiden victory two years earlier but “different”.

He said: “I just feel this sense that the community I live in has done something overwhelming, how on earth am I ever going to repay that?

“All I can promise is that I will give every single fibre that I have got to make them proud of the remarkable thing they’ve done. They have given me this incredible mandate to really stick up for this community in very difficult times.”

Mr Kyle said that the increase from 1,200 votes to an 18,757 majority meant that votes had to come from other parties which he said was “incredibly special” and reflective of the “very

open-hearted way” and inclusive approach he brought to the role.

The Labour MP said Prime Minister Theresa May was “a mortally wounded political figure” who had her bid for a

blank cheque on her Brexit vision resolutely rejected by the country.

He said: “She has been reprimanded by the public and she has been sent back to London to get a grip on her own party, on her own thinking and on a way forward.”