Exit poll suggests Labour has won 410 seats, and the Tories 131
Clive Myrie is reading out the exit poll.
Conservatives: 131
Labour: 410
Liberal Democrats: 61
SNP: 10
Reform UK: 13
Plaid Cymru: 4
Greens: 2
Key events
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.
Jeremy Hunt to become first chancellor to lose seat, exit poll suggests
Jeremy Hunt is projected to lose his seat, according to the exit poll. He would be the first chancellor in modern history to lose his seat.
Hunt is the most high-profile cabinet minister predicted to lose his seat – but he is by no means the only one.
Grant Shapps, the defence minister, and Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, could also lose their seats.
Transport secretary Mark Harper, Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, Environment secretary Steve Barclay and Commons leader Penny Mordaunt are all “too close to call”, according to the poll.
Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist who led the team that produced the exit poll, has just told the BBC that they are least confident about the seat figures for Reform UK (13) and for the SNP (10).
With the SNP, he says they have fewer sampling points in Scotland, making it harder to get a firm forecast. But he says he is confident about Labour being the larger party in Scotland.
And he says, with Reform UK, there are seats where they are ahead, but the margin is very tight. He says they could end up with quite a lot less seats, or perhaps even more.
Welsh secretary says he has lost his seat
Steven Morris
The Welsh secretary, David TC Davies, has said the exit poll suggests there “isn’t a chance” he’ll retain his seat.
Speaking to the BBC, he said:
On the basis of the exit poll, there isn’t a chance that I’ll be winning, which is disappointing. I’ve had great support from the local association, but the fact is, people wanted a change.
That’s the way it goes in democracy. I’ll be the first to acknowledge there’s going to be a massive Labour victory and I certainly won’t be in parliament at the end of the evening.
Davies had stood for the new seat of Monmouthshire in south-east Wales.
Tory strategists are worried that they could face a wipeout in Wales. They won 14 of the 40 seats at the 2019 election. In 1997 and 2001 they were left with zero seats in Wales but had steadily clambered back.
Peter Mandelson, the Labour peer, said he was “gobsmacked” by the exit poll results and the projected Labour win was an “extraordinary achievement for Keir Starmer and his team”.
“An electoral meteor has now struck planet Earth,” he told the BBC, adding:
In a sense, it’s not surprising given everything the country has gone through in the last 10 years.
William Hague, the former Tory leader and former foreign secretary, has said it will take the Conservative party “a long time” to recover from this defeat.
Speaking on Times Radio, he said the result implied by the exit poll was “catastrophic”, but not as bad as some of the forecasts. One projection said it would get only 64 seats, he said.
With 131 seats, the Tories would “just about” be able to mount an effective opposition, he said. He went on:
The answer will be to build again for the future. The Conservative party at its greatest – as it has been over 200 years, usually the governing party of the country – because it could command the centre ground of politics, people of all walks of life, people of all age groups, and it will have to be able to do that. It will take a long time to be able to do that, but it will have to be able to do that.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said the exit poll numbers are “encouraging” but noted that an “exit poll is a poll so we haven’t had any results yet”.
Rayner, speaking to BBC News, noted that a number of seats were on a “knife-edge”, adding:
I also know that all of our activists and our candidates have been going out there not taking anything for granted and speaking to the electorate about what matters to them.
She added that it would be “an absolute honour and a privilege to be re-elected” as an MP for Ashton-under-Lyne and to be able to serve as deputy prime minister.
Rayner also took a moment to thank those who voted for Labour, telling Sky News:
We understand the weight on our shoulders … and I would say to the people of this country, I will always put you first, and I will fight really hard every day to turn things around.
Some candidates suffered ‘unacceptable abuse and intimidation’ during campaign, says Electoral Commission
Some candidates suffered “unacceptable abuse and intimidation” at this election, the Electoral Commission said.
In a statement issued as polls closed, the commission’s chief executive, Vijay Rangarajan, said:
Today, tens of millions of people exercised their democratic right and had their say at the ballot box. Overall, our initial assessment is that polling day ran smoothly and people were able to cast their votes securely. We continue to support administrators as they undertake counts tonight.
Millions of people were able to have their say, but we know there is room to improve the experience for some. A record number of postal votes were successfully returned, but some couldn’t vote both in the UK and abroad because of the late arrival of postal votes.
There was a robust and vibrant campaign, but unacceptable abuse and intimidation of candidates. We will collect evidence from people who participated in these elections as voters, candidates, campaigners and administrators, to better understand their experiences. We will recommend improvements to the systems where necessary.
‘This is a massacre’: former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson on exit poll projection
Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, has described the exit poll as projecting a “massacre” for her party. But it was not as bad as it might have been, she told Sky News. She said:
So actually 131 – while, there is no dressing it up, this is a massacre – they’ve actually, if this is right, pulled a few back from where they thought they were.
Here are some images from the newswires showing reactions to the exit poll predicting a Labour landslide win.
‘Politically seismic’ – Reform UK welcomes exit poll suggesting it will win 13 seats
Ben Quinn
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK appeared to be on course for a dramatic breakthrough according to an exit poll which showed it was on course to win as many as 13 seats.
While there was caution about how exit poll would ultimately translate into seats, it was clear that millions of people had voted for the hard-right anti-immigration party, which has stated that it is out to destroy the Conservative party.
Ben Habib, Reform’s deputy leader, said: “This is a huge bridgehead. This is politically seismic.”
The poll results suggest that Farage, who sparked a political earthquake on the right after he returned as leader of the party last month and announced he had changed his mind about running, is on course to win the Essex seat of Clacton.
Richard Tice, Reform’s chair and the man who stepped aside so that Farage could come back, appeared to be in a strong position to win in Boston and Skegness.
Others who were in a strong position included the former Southampton football club chairman Rupert Lowe, who was running in Great Yarmouth.
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