"It's big, it's huge. There is no other way of putting it, it's a massive swing against," a bewildered Lawrence Yule said in reaction to his staggering defeat this afternoon.
"I am pretty stunned by the size of the loss to be honest, I excepted it to be a lot closer than this.
"But I accept that the people have said that they don't necessarily believe that there should be a change in structure, and they have voted in droves accordingly."
Mr Yule contrasted today's outcome to polling figures his camp conducted six month's ago which showed that vote would fall probably 55-45 against.
"So we thought we had a grounds to pick up that but actually it has gone the other way dramatically," he said.