Exit poll: Labour to win landslide in general election
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Labour has won a landslide victory in the general election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule, the exit poll suggests.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party looks set to secure the win with an estimated 410 seats – equating to an overall majority of 170 – according to the poll by Ipsos UK for Sky News/BBC/ITV News.
This is compared to the Conservatives, who are projected to win just 131 seats, compared to 365 in the 2019 vote.
Some of the party’s most senior figures are also expected to lose their seats, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer.
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Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner downplayed the results, saying while the exit poll was “encouraging”, there was still a long way to go until the final results.
But she said Sir Keir had done a “tremendous job in transforming the Labour Party and putting forward a programme for government that the country can get behind”.
Former leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, also told Sky News the result was a “massacre” for her party.
The poll suggests that while Labour have likely secured their anticipated landslide victory, more than doubling their result of 203 from five years ago, they may have fallen just short of the 179-seat majority Tony Blair won in 1997.
However, they may achieve the landslide on a smaller share of the vote than what Jeremy Corbyn secured in 2017.
Meanwhile, both the Conservative share of the vote and their seat tally could be the lowest in the party’s history, falling below the 156 won in 1906.
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The Liberal Democrats are also projected to win more than five times the number of seats that they secured at the last election, going from 11 to 61 in the exit poll.
They will take the title of the third largest party in the Commons away from the SNP too, who are projected to fall from 52 seats in 2019 to just 10.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said he was “humbled” by the poll, saying it would be “our best results in a century thanks to our positive campaign with health and care at its heart”.
SNP leader John Swinney insisted his party had “fought a positive, upbeat campaign, firmly rooted in the values of the people of Scotland”, and despite the projected result, he said: “Scotland will be glad to see the back of this disastrous Tory government and I am confident that SNP votes across the country will make that happen.”
New entrants Reform could overtake the SNP with an expected seat count of 13, according to the poll, with leader Nigel Farage almost certain to win in Clacton.
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Here are the number of seats each party is expected to secure:
Labour: 410
Conservatives: 131
Liberal Democrats: 61
Reform: 13
SNP: 10
Plaid Cymru: 4
Green: 2
Other: 19
To form a majority government in the Commons, a party needs to win at least 326 seats.
It appears the Conservatives have suffered heavily in places where more than a third of households have a mortgage – a reflection perhaps of the damage that the Liz Truss “fiscal event” had.
It also looks as though Reform may win more seats than many polls suggested they would, although how many seats they will win is highly uncertain.
The Lib Dems have performed especially well in seats where they started second to the Conservatives – and particularly so in ones that the party held until 2015.
In Scotland, it appears the SNP has suffered a more substantial reverse than was anticipated by most polls.
Read more:
Exit polls: How accurate are they?
Key timings of general election results
Mr Sunak – who took over from Ms Truss as prime minister in October 2022 – struggled to make headway in a general election campaign that was beset by mishaps from the start.
Commentators questioned the decision to allow the Conservative leader to announce the election in the pouring rain, as well as the overall timing – which although designed to catch his opponents off guard, also caught his own side by surprise.
A number of communication blunders – including visiting Belfast’s Titanic Quarter while wearing a life jacket – also had the effect of projecting the image that the Conservatives were fighting a losing campaign.
The biggest unenforced error came when Mr Sunak left D-Day commemorations in France early to attend a broadcast interview – something he apologised for but was asked about repeatedly in subsequent weeks.
Towards the latter half of the campaign, it was the revelation that one of Mr Sunak’s closest aides, along with a number of Conservatives, had placed bets on the timing of the election that put even more pressure his operation.
He was forced to abandon support for those caught up in the scandal who are being investigated by the Gambling Commission.
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