BBC – July 5, 2024
Labour is on course for a landslide victory as the Conservatives face their worst ever general election results.
Sir Keir Starmer is heading to Downing Street with a majority of 170, according to a BBC projection with more than half the seats declared.
In his constituency victory speech, the Labour leader said it was “time for us to deliver”.
The Conservatives are forecast to end up with 144 MPs, slightly higher than predicted by the exit poll, but still their worst ever result.
The Scottish National Party is now forecast to be reduced to just eight MPs.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has won a seat in Parliament at his eighth attempt, in Clacton, promising “this is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you”.
The party has four MPs so far – including chairman Richard Tice and former Tory Lee Anderson – and is finishing second in many parts of the country, taking large amounts of votes from the Conservatives.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and Commons leader Penny Mordaunt are among more than a dozen Tory ministers to lose their seats, with other senior Tory figures such as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt looking vulnerable.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has defeated his old party to retain his Islington North seat as an independent.
But another high profile former Labour MP, George Galloway, failed to retain the Rochdale seat he won at a by-election in February, losing to Labour’s Paul Waugh.
The Liberal Democrats are benefitting from a collapse in Tory support and are predicted to get 56 MPs, slightly fewer than the 61 predicted by the exit poll but still their best result since 2010.
Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has beaten Labour in Bristol Central and her party is predicted to gain another seat to double their current number of MPs.
Sir Keir Starmer’s predicted landslide would be short of the 179 majority won by Tony Blair in 1997 and the party may achieve it on a smaller share of the vote than former leader Jeremy Corbyn won in 2017, according to Sir John Curtice.
It will mean a Labour prime minister in Downing Street for the first time since 2010 and a battle for the future direction of the Conservatives if, as seems likely, Rishi Sunak stands down as leader.
Labour’s Rachel Reeves – who looks set to be the first female chancellor in a few hours’ time – said she did not want to pre-empt the result but it was “clear that the British people have voted for change” and a “brighter future” under Sir Keir Starmer.
In her victory speech in Leeds West and Pudsey, she said: “We will not let you down and I can’t wait to get started.”
The Conservatives may avoid the wipe-out predicted by some opinion polls but they are still set for the worst result in the party’s history, losing 218 MPs – a devastating blow after 14 years in government.
Penny Mordaunt, who lost to Labour by just 780 words, had been tipped to make another attempt to be Tory leader after the election.
Conceding defeat, she said her party had lost because it “had failed to honour the trust people had placed in it.”
Former attorney general Sir Robert Buckland, the first Tory MP to lose his seat as results began rolling in, told the BBC his party was facing “electoral Armageddon” and Labour’s likely victory was a “big vote for change”.
And he angrily lashed out at colleagues, such as former home secretary Suella Braverman, for what he called “spectacularly unprofessional and ill-disciplined” behaviour during the campaign.
“I’m fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position,” he added, warning that the upcoming Tory leadership contest was “going to be like a group of bald men arguing over a comb”.
The SNP are “not winning that argument” on Scottish independence, First Minister John Swinney.
“Opinion polls still show that about half the population in Scotland want our country to be independent,” he told the BBC.
“That’s not manifested itself in the election result tonight and that’s something we’ve got to look at very carefully as a party and to think about how we can remedy that situation.”
The Liberal Democrats are, meanwhile, squeezing the Tory vote in the south of England, with leader Sir Ed Davey saying: “It looks like this will be our best result for a generation.”
Former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is also under threat from the Lib Dems, said it was “clearly a terrible night” for the Conservatives.
He said voters had been put off by the revolving door in No 10 which saw Boris Johnson replaced first by Liz Truss and then by Rishi Sunak.
Mr Sunak had insisted he could still win right to the end despite failing to make a dent in Labour’s commanding opinion poll lead over the six-week campaign.
Mr Sunak surprised many in his own party by announcing a summer election.
But his campaign was hit by a series of gaffes, from the rain-drenched announcement in Downing Street to his decision to leave a D-Day celebration in Normandy early to record a TV interview and confused messaging about a Labour “super majority”.