Exit poll suggests Labour has won 410 seats, and the Tories 131Clive Myrie is reading out the exit poll.
Conservatives: 131
Labour: 410
Liberal Democrats: 61
SNP: 10
Reform UK: 13
Plaid Cymru: 4
Greens: 2
‘Labour landslide’: BBC presenters announce election exit poll findings – videoKey events
Lisa O’Carroll
Labour sources have told the BBC they think they have snatched four of the six Glasgow seats from the SNP with two constituencies, Glasgow North and Glasgow South too close to call.
We’ve had three results now from safeish Labour seats in the north-east of England where Reform UK has come second. In all three, the Brexit party (the predecessor party of Reform UK) came third last time, behind the Tories.
And their share of the vote has risen sharply.
In Houghton and Sunderland, a 16% Brexit party vote in 2019 has become a 29% Reform UK vote.
In Blyth and Ashington, a 9% Brexit party vote in 2019 has become a 27% Reform UK vote.
And in Sunderland Central, a 12% Brexit party vote has become a 27% Reform UK vote.
Here are the full results for Swindon South, from PA Media:
Lab win – gain from notional C
Heidi Alexander (Lab) 21,676 (48.39%)
+Sir Robert Buckland (C) 12,070 (26.95%)
Catherine Kosidowski (Reform) 6,194 (13.83%)
Rod Hebden (Green) 2,539 (5.67%)
Matt McCabe (LD) 1,843 (4.11%)
Martin Costello (Ind) 472 (1.05%)
Lab maj 9,606 (21.44%)
Notional 16.43% swing C to Lab
29.20% boundary change
Electorate 72,596; Turnout 44,794 (61.70%)
2019 notional: C maj 5,650 (11.41%) – Turnout 49,527 (68.34%)
C 25,564 (51.62%); Lab 19,914 (40.21%); LD 3,788 (7.65%); Green 261
(0.53%)
Labour wins Swindon South taking seat from former justice secretary Robert BucklandLabour’s Heidi Alexander has won Swindon South, taking the seat from the former Conservative justice secretary Robert Buckland.
It marks the first Labour gain from the Conservatives.
Lisa O’Carroll
Six seats are in play in Glasgow, down from seven in 2019 and results will not be in until at least 3am.
A walk around the Glasgow Emirates Arena indicates it is a close run between SNP and Labour which used to dominate the city before 2015.
Labour volunteers say they have been surprised by the number of votes for Reform showing in Glasgow north while Conservatives are dismissing exit polls suggestions that the party might double its six seats in Scotland, saying it didn’t even target some of them.
Third result of the night is in – Labour’s Lewis Atkinson has won Sunderland Central.
Reform UK has once again come second. Here are the full figures from PA Media:
Labour hold
Lewis Atkinson (Lab) 16,852 (42.18%) Chris Eynon (Reform) 10,779 (26.98%)
Greg Peacock (C) 5,731 (14.34%)
Niall Hodson (LD) 3,602 (9.01%)
Rachel Featherstone (Green) 2,993 (7.49%)
Earlier this week Rishi Sunak seemed to hint that, if the Tories lost, he would stay on as leader for a period to provide stability while the party assesses the way forward. Some Tories are hoping he will do this, following the example of Michael Howard, whose decision to hang on for six months after the 2005 election, overseeing changes to the leadership election process and a lengthy leadership contest, was generally seen as good for the party.
But Tim Shipman, the Sunday Times’ chief political commentator, has told Times Radio he thinks Sunak will resign on Friday. This is from Calum Macdonald at Times Radio.
. @ShippersUnbound tells @TimesRadio’s Election night that his understanding is that Rishi Sunak will announce his resignation as Conservative leader on Friday morning
— Calum Macdonald (@CalumAM) July 4, 2024 . @ShippersUnbound tells @TimesRadio‘s Election night that his understanding is that Rishi Sunak will announce his resignation as Conservative leader on Friday morning
At the last leadership contest, following the resignation of Liz Truss, the Conservative 1922 Committe imposed a threshold saying any candidate would need to be nominated by 100 MPs to go forward to the ballot of members. This was designed to avoid the need for ballot of members. Sunak passed the threshold, Boris Johnson reportedly passed the threshold, but pulled out, and Sunak was elected unopposed.
If the Tories do get only 131 seats, as the exit poll suggests, then it would be impossible for more than one candidate to pass the 100-MP threshold. If the Tories want their members to have the final say, the rules will need a rethink.
David Bull, deputy leader of Reform UK, said it is an “historic moment” after the exit polls predicted his party gaining 13 seats.
“I think what you’re seeing is the shy ‘Reformers’ coming out in droves,” Bull told the BBC.
Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests Tory defeat partly explained by decision to ditch Boris Johnson as leaderRightwingers in the Conservative party think a major cause of the party’s defeat was the decision to get rid of Boris Johnson, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was leader of the Commons and then Brexit minister under Johnson, became one of the first Tories to make that case tonight.
Speaking on the BBC, he said it had been “a terrible night” for the party.
Asked what went wrong for the party, Rees-Mogg said there were “issues with changing the leader”. He went on:
Voters expect the prime minister they have chosen to remain the prime minister and for it to be the voters who decide when that person is changed …
I’m afraid I think the Conservative party took it’s core vote for granted, which is why you see so many people who may have voted Conservative previously, going off to Reform.
In the first result of the night, the Labour shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has won the Houghton and Sunderland South constituency.
Phillipson, in her victory speech, said the British people had “chosen a brighter future”.
Tonight the British people have spoken, and if the exit poll this evening is again a guide to results across our country as it so often is, then after 14 years the British people have chosen change.
They have chosen Labour and they have chosen the leadership of Keir Starmer. Today our country with its proud history has chosen a brighter future. The British people have decided that they believe as Labour believes that our best days lie ahead of us – hope and unity, not decline and division, stability over chaos.
A government powered by hope, by the belief that tomorrow cannot just be different from today, but better. A government of service, a government with purpose above all to change our society for good.
Bridget Phillipson at a sports centre in Sunderland after winning the Houghton and Sunderland South seat. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA Media
Fiona Harvey
Rishi Sunak’s U-turns and reversals on net zero had proved “as popular with voters as a root canal”, said Greenpeace as the exit poll showed Labour on course for a landslide victory.
Ami McCarthy, political campaigner at Greenpeace, said:
A strong majority of voters seem to have rejected the Conservatives’ divisive approach to the climate and nature crises and backed parties willing to tackle them.
Sunak signalled his sharp change in direction last September, ahead of the party conference season, vowing to roll back key policies. He stepped up his anti-green rhetoric repeatedly in the following months, culminating in an attack on “environmental dogma” when he called the election in the rain on the steps of Downing Street.
But this approach had been clearly rejected, if the exit poll was correct, green experts said. Ed Matthew, campaigns director at the E3G thinktank, said:
Dependence on oil and gas has driven the cost-of-living crisis. By delaying and damaging the clean energy policies that could cut energy bills, Rishi Sunak pitched the Conservatives against every UK household. It was a catastrophic political blunder.
Shaun Spiers, executive director at the Green Alliance thinktank, said:
British people want a credible plan to make their lives better, and they’ve emphatically backed a party that promises to help the economy grow, create jobs in clean industries and take the climate crisis seriously. Voters have rejected a party which backtracked on its commitments, campaigned against its own record in government, and tried to draw dividing lines around the environment. The new government has a clear mandate from the public to invest in Britain, and to take decisive action towards a greener, fairer and more prosperous country.
Second result – Labour holds Blyth and AshingtonThe second result of the night has been announced – Labour’s Ian Lavery has won in Blyth and Ashington.
Reform has come second. The full results are:
Labour – 20,030 (49.6%)
Reform UK – 10,857 (26.9%)
Conservative – 6,121 (15.2%)
Green Party – 1,960 (4.9%)
Lib Dems – 1,433 (3.6%)
Full results for Houghton and Sunderland SouthAnd here are the full figures for Houghton and Sunderland South, from PA Media.
Labour hold
Bridget Phillipson (Lab) 18,837 (47.05%)
Sam Woods-Brass (Reform) 11,668 (29.15%)
Chris Burnicle (C) 5,514 (13.77%)
Paul Edgeworth (LD) 2,290 (5.72%)
Richard Bradley (Green) 1,723 (4.30%)
Lab maj 7,169 (17.91%)
11.50% boundary change
Electorate 78,448; Turnout 40,032 (51.03%)
2019 notional: Lab maj 3,271 (7.47%) – Turnout 43,798 (56.97%)
Lab 17,696 (40.40%); C 14,425 (32.94%); Brexit 6,895 (15.74%); LD
2,602 (5.94%); Green 1,183 (2.70%); Others 997 (2.28%)
Reform UK is the new version of the Brexit party, and, on that basis, its share of the vote is up 13 points. Labour’s share is up 7 points, and the Tories’ share is down 19 points.
Hannah Al-Othman
In Barnsley North, the exit poll predicts that Labour’s Dan Jarvis is likely to lose his seat to a former Reform candidate who was dropped by the party last week over alleged racist comments.
On an episode of BBC Question Time on Friday, Reform party leader Nigel Farage disowned three candidates, including Barnsley North’s Robert Lomas.
According to a report in the Times, Lomas had reportedly said that “black people of Britain should get off their lazy arses and stop acting like savages”, and that asylum seekers had it “in their DNA to lie.”
On Saturday, Reform confirmed it had withdrawn support from Lomas and two other candidates. It is understood Lomas would sit as an independent MP.
Jarvis, a former army officer and a shadow minister under Ed Miliband, has been an MP since 2011, when he was elected in a byelection. In 2019, in the previous constituency, Barnsley Central, the Brexit Party came in second place, with Jarvis winning a majority of just 3,500.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said he was “delighted” by the “remarkable” exit poll results. He told the BBC:
If we have won this general election, that is historic for the Labour party, but even more importantly, is an opportunity for the country, for us to rebuild our economy and our public services and rebuild trust in politics.
Streeting praised Keir Starmer’s “steel and the determination”, adding that he didn’t think the Labour leader has nearly enough credit for having grabbed the party “by the scruff”.
Although the exit poll suggests Labour is on course to more than double the number of seats it wins, compared to 2019, it seems to be achieving this without a dramatic increase in its share of the vote.
The BBC has shown figures comparing how vote share has changed in seats won by the Tories in 2019, compared to seats won by Labour in 2019, and in the 2019 Labour seats the party’s share of the vote is down 1 percentage point. The Tories are down 17 points, and Reform UK up 10.
In seats the Tories won in 2019, Labour is up 5 points, and the Tories down 28 points. Again, Reform UK is the big winner in these seats – up 18 points.
Swing in Tory-held 2019 seats v swing in Labour-held 2019 seats Photograph: BBCFirst result of the night – Labour wins Houghton and Sunderland SouthLabour’s Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, has won Houghton and Sunderland South.
Lisa O’Carroll
The Scottish National Party is facing a near wipeout in Westminster after dominating politics north of the border for a decade, as an exit poll suggested it would be left with just 10 MPs.
Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon told ITV that the survey showing they would lose 38 constituencies would translate into a “seismic” night for Labour – if it proves accurate. Sturgeon said she believed the results of the exit poll would turn out to be “broadly right”.
The SNP had been expecting a bad night, with first minster John Swinney warning that votes in many constituencies were on a knife-edge. Privately it been hoping for about 20 seats, but the projected 10 would be the worst result since 2010 – prior to the independence referendum.
However, Labour is expecting a Lazarus-style recovery from 2019, its worst result in Scotland since 2010 when it had only one MP.
Polls ahead of tonight predicted Labour would take between 25 and 26 seats, winning seats in the central belt of Edinburgh, Glasgow and their surrounding constituencies.
Ballot boxes are delivered to the Clacton count centre in Clacton-on-Sea. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty ImagesBallot papers being emptied in Glasgow Photograph: Lesley Martin/ReutersActivists watching votes being verified at the count at Emirates Arena in Glasgow. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA