Labour wins UK general election, Tories suffer huge losses

That's a wrap from us!

Thanks for following along, and stay tuned for more pieces on what tonight's election results could mean for the UK and for Europe.

Following a speech focused on public services and rebuilding Britain, Starmer's party have named cutting NHS waiting times, providing economic stability and the creation of a publicly owned clean energy firm as a few of their key priorities.

Meanwhile, the Conservative party faces choosing a leader, and potentially a new direction for the party, among its hallowed out group of 121 MPs.

Read about the aftermath of the election and the challenges Labour might face below.

What comes next after Labour’s landslide UK election win?

In the next 24 hours, new ministers will be appointed, and the direction of the new government will be made clearer. #EuropeNews

Keir Starmer has officially assumed office as prime minister of the United Kingdom as he gave a speech at 10 Downing Street. 

Paying tribute to former prime minister Rishi Sunak, Starmer went on to say that public service was a "privilege" and that he would govern the UK "country first, party second."

He focused part of his speech on saying that his party would aim to restore trust in politicians, saying that, "one of the great strengths of this nation has always been our ability to navigate a way to calmer waters. And yet this depends upon politicians, particularly those who stand for stability and moderation as I do, recognising when we must change course.”

He concluded that his government would be guided by the interests of the British public, rather than by "doctrine" before declaring that "our work is urgent and we begin it today."

The last time Labour won in 1997, Tony Blair took 40.7% of the vote. This year Starmer has managed to gather 33.8 % support.

Although Starmer only secured 33.8% of the public vote, it will translate into around 412 seats. In contrast although the Green Party secured 7% of the vote, they will gain 4 seats.

This peculiarity is due to the UK's unique voting system, known as first-past-the-post, where the MP with the most votes in each constituency wins, regardless of whether they have a majority, and other candidates return with nothing.

The party with the most MPs will then form the government.

Keir Starmer has arrived at Buckingham Palace to meet King Charles, where he will be invited to form the next UK government as prime minister.

Meanwhile, Labour staff have lined Downing Street where Starmer will is set to give his first speech as leader of the UK.

Last night's election saw several smaller parties win and lose. 

It was a good night for Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, whose party scored 71 seats — a huge increase from the 11 it achieved in the 2019 election. 

Davey told PA Media that his party's first action would be to demand an emergency budget for health and care issues. 

The Liberal Democrats focused on a few seats in the south of England, where they managed to upseat several Conservative ministers and enter Parliament as the third-largest party for the first time since 2015.

It was a different picture entirely in Scotland for Scottish National Party leader John Swinney whose party was reduced from 47 seats to nine. 

"I have to accept we failed to convince people of the urgency of independence in this election campaign", Swinney said before adding that the party needed to "engage with, listen to and learn from the people of Scotland on how we take forward our arguments for independence." 

Other firsts from last night's result include 4 seats apiece for the Greens, who quadrupled their representation in the House of Commons, and Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, who will enter Parliament for the first time. 

Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru also delivered their best ever result sending four Members of Parliament to Westminster.

In Northern Ireland, the nationalist party Sinn Féin overtook the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for the first time. Ian Paisley Jr., the son of party founder and former Northern Ireland First Minister, Ian Paisley, lost his seat in North Antrim after 14 years.

Sinn Féin are expected to pressure the Labour government for a referendum on Irish unity.

Rishi Sunak announced he would resign as party leader once a successor has been appointed in his parting speech in front of 10 Downing Street. 

"I would like to say first and foremost, I am sorry" Sunak said before commenting he was "pained" that many of his Conservative party colleagues had lost their seats in the House of Commons. 

Sunak paid tribute to Keir Starmer, calling him, "a decent public-spirited man who I respect" before highlighting his government's achievements, including bringing inflation down to target levels. 

The Conservative party, who have dominated government for 14 years, will now have to choose a leader out of around 121 candidates after multiple high-profile party members lost their seats.

The Labour party have emerged victorious after a long night that saw winners and losers across the UK's political spectrum.

From the fall of famous Brexiteers to the quirks of the British electoral system, Jack Schickler has six key takeaways from the UK election results.

UK election results: 6 key takeaways you need to know this morning

Keir Starmer’s Labour appears to have scored a triumphant victory — and the Conservatives now face a fork in the road. #EuropeNews

Leaders across the world have taken to X to praise Starmer's victory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was grateful to his "good friend" Rishi Sunak before wishing Starmer congratulations.

"Ukraine and the United Kingdom have been and will continue to be reliable allies through thick and thin. We will continue to defend and advance our common values of life, freedom, and a rules-based international order" commented Zelenskyy.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Shoof said of Starmer, "I look forward to working together and to meeting with him in the weeks to come."

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas also congratulated the Labour leader, citing security as a common value between the UK and Estonia.

With only 5 out of 650 seats yet to be declared Labour have 411 seats with the Conservatives at 119.

For Labour, the result is one seat higher than predicted in the exit poll released last night which put Labour at 410 seats. The Conservatives have so far faired slightly worse than expected in the poll, which gave them 131 seats.

With 645 out of 650 seats declared, here are the results:

Labour: 411

Conservatives: 119

Liberal Democrats: 71

SNP: 9

Reform: 4

Green: 4

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron have congratulated Keir Starmer on his victory.

Posting on X, von der Leyen tagged Starmer before commenting, "I look forward to working with you in a constructive partnership to address common challenges and strengthen European security."

Macron also congratulated the Labour leader, saying "We will continue the work undertaken with the United Kingdom for our bilateral cooperation, for the peace and security of Europe, for climate and AI."

Charles Michel, President of the European Council, commented that the European Union and the UK were "crucial partners" and addressed Starmer by saying, "I look forward to working with you and your government in this new cycle for the UK."

Former prime minister Liz Truss said that the Conservative party hadn't delivered sufficiently on the priorities of the British people, when asked by BBC news if she took responsibility for her party's defeat tonight. 

"During our 14 years in power, unfortunately, we did not do enough to take on the legacy we’d left. In particular, things like the Human Rights Act that made it very difficult for us to deport illegal immigrants, and that is one of the reasons I think we’ve ended up in this situation we are now" commented Truss, who lost her seat this evening to Labour candidate Terry Jermy.

Truss was prime minister for six weeks, during which she unveiled a mini-budget that sparked the collapse of the sterling.

The Conservatives have seen a 20 point decline in support with several major figures ejected from Parliament. In another blow to the party, former prime minister Boris Johnson's old seat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip was lost to a Labour candidate.

Labour have won a remarkable number of seats giving Starmer a huge mandate in the House of Commons, however one political commentator has pointed to their relatively low vote share and fractured voting across the country — calling their win, "a loveless landslide."

As of 7am, Labour's victory comes from 35% of the voting public choosing to vote for them, an increase of only 1.4 percentage points in 2019 and 5 percentage points less than Jeremy Corbyn garnered in 2017.

The success of the Liberal Democrats - who achieved their highest ever number of seats at the expense of the Conservatives- and the break through of Nigel Farage's Reform UK party point to altered voting patterns across the country. The Greens have also won 4 seats, in a party first.

In Wales, Labour are down by four points compensated by a huge increase in Scotland where the Scottish National Party suffered a crushing defeat after being hit by a series of scandals.

Liz Truss has lost her seat in South West Norfolk — once considered one of the safest Conservative seats in the country and her own seat for 14 years.

British prime minister for only 49 days Truss was nowhere to be seen minutes before the result, and walked off stage after Labour candidate Terry Jermy gave his victory speech.

In 2019, she won the seat with a huge majority of 26,195 — losing this year by about 600.

The former minister for Brexit opportunities and ardent supporter of the UK leaving the EU, Jacob Rees-Mogg also lost his seat of Somerset North East and Hanham to Labour's Dan Norris by over 5,000 votes.

A record number of eleven Conservative cabinet ministers have lost their seats in this election, including House of Commons speaker Penny Mordaunt.

Although Labour are on course for a landslide victory, it seems that the party's stance on the war in Gaza has caused it to lose support within big Muslim communities.

In Leicester South prominent Labour politician Jonathan Ashworth lost his seat to independent candidate Shockat Adam, who put Gaza at the heart of his campaign.

Ashworth — who was widely expected to be appointed to Cabinet — lost 20,000 votes compared to 2019.

In Leicester East — which has one of the highest Muslim populations in the UK — the Conservatives gained a seat from Labour whose vote share dropped by 29 points.

Even Labour leader Keir Starmer saw his majority in his Holborn and St. Pancras seat in north London reduced, with more than 7,000 votes going to a pro-Gaza candidate.

Starmer has taken a strongly pro-Israel stance and maintained it even as the death toll in Gaza has risen as the conflict in the Middle East continues.

The UK's new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer addressed crowds in central London after the Labour party won a decisive victory in the general election.

Speaking just minutes after Labour's victory was confirmed Starmer told crowds, "change begins now."

"You campaigned for it, you fought for it - and now it has arrived," said Starmer, who added that with Labour's new mandate came, "great responsibility."

Labour continues to win more seats across the UK, as early morning results show the Conservatives are on course for one of their worst election night results ever, with eight cabinet ministers losing their seats.

The Scottish National Party also suffered a huge loss, with the party's leader saying earlier in the night the party may not even hold on to ten seats after winning 47 in Scotland in 2019.

Elsewhere, ardent Brexiteer Nigel Farage's party Reform UK have gained four seats so far after only entering the election race a month prior.

In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein - the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army - looks set to have the most seats from Northern Ireland at Westminster for the first time.

Standing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has conceded victory to the Labour party in a speech seconds after it was announced he held onto his seat in Richmond and Northallerton.

"I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on the victory" Sunak said.

There were fears that the prime minister would lose his seat, which would make him the first standing premier to do.

Although Sunak held on by a comfortable margin to his constituency he looked solemn as results were read out before admitting that Labour had won the election.

"I will now head down to London, where I will say more about tonight's result, before I leave the job as prime minister, to which I have given my all", he concluded.

The BBC has revised its projections for the overall result, based on the flow of results we're already seeing.

The new predictions say that Labour will get 405 seats and the Conservatives 154.

That's still, by any standards, a thumping majority for Keir Starmer, but somewhat less than the previous estimates of 410 and 131 given in an exit poll when polls closed.

Nigel Farage's Reform Party has been downgraded from 13 seats to four, while the Scottish National Party are now predicted to take just six.

The Green Party has taken its first seat of the evening, in Bristol Central.

The Greens' Carla Denyer beat Labour's Thangam Debbonaire.

The Greens are generally stung by the UK's first-past-the-post system, since dissipated support means they don't come first in many or any regions in spite of their vote share.

This year they weren't helped by the fact that former MEP Caroline Lucas stepped down from her seat in Brighton.

Nigel Farage, the former Brexit ringleader who now heads up the Reform Party, has won a seat as an MP after repeated failed attempts.

Farage, previously leader of the UK Independence Party, won in the seaside constituency of Clacton, and an exit poll suggests his party could win as many as 13 of Westminster's 650 seats.

"What Reform UK achieved in a just a few short weeks is truly extraordinary," Farage said in a victory speech. "Something very fundamental is happening."

The former MEP said he wanted to fill a "massive gap on the centre-right of British politics" as well as taking votes from the left-wing Labour Party, and promised to set up a "mass national movement" over the coming years.

"This is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you", he added.

Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour party who was suspended in an anti-Semitism scandal, has been elected as an independent in his North London constituency.

Corbyn stood against a Labour candidate in the seat he has represented as an MP since the 1980s.

Corbyn represents the left wing of the party, and if unreconciled is likely to represent a thorn in Starmer's side as MP.

Keir Starmer, likely next Prime Minister of the UK, gave a rousing speech in his North London constituency, after it was announced he'd been re-elected by a significant margin.

"People around the country have spoken", the Labour leader said. "They're ready for change, to end the politics of performance, and return to politics as public service."

Starmer is trying to draw a line under the theatrical, occasionally chaotic, approach favoured by the likes of Boris Johnson, towards his own more businesslike style.

Starmer cited knife crime, struggling businesses and a shortage of doctors' appointments as he promised to "fight your corner every single day".

As is often the case in more newsworthy constituencies, Starmer was joined on the stand by a roster of oddball candidates, including "Nick the incredible flying brick" and a person dressed as Elmo from Sesame Street. They rarely draw many votes, but the joke candidates certainly draw attention.

Buckle up for results to pour in now. Many constituencies are planning to to finalise their counts over the coming hour or so.

This could be the moment that really determines how accurate the exit polls are, and how large the scale of Keir Starmer's victory.

If the result is close, they'll have to be a recount, leading to a delay on the scheduled result.

In general, urban seats tend to declare before rural ones, which is why Labour is outperforming the Conservatives by quite so much in terms of confirmed results.

College Green, the patch of grass just outside Westminster which is typically bustling with activity on election night, was eerily quiet in the early hours of Friday morning, Euronews reporter Mared Gwyn Jones reports.

Perhaps there was a sense that the outcome of this election had been known for months

All eyes are now on Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is expected to be formally appointed by the King on Friday before forming a government.

Lindsay Hoyle has held on to his seat of Chorley.

That comes as little surprise - he's the speaker of the House of Commons, and by tradition sits unopposed in his constituency, at least by any of the major parties.

Hoyle was previously in the Labour party, but tradition dictated that he abandon his party affiliation when he took up his role chairing parliamentary sessions in 2019.

Exit polls predicted Nigel Farage's Reform Party could win 13 seats, far higher than many previously predicted.

One of them has just been announced - Ashfield, won by former Conservative Party vice-chair Lee Anderson who recently defected to Reform.

But emerging results suggest the prediction of 13 MPs for Farage's party could prove too high.

One of those 13 was supposed to be Barnsley North, which Labour's Dan Jarvis actually won.

That adds to evidence that exit polls may be at their shakiest when predicting support for newcomer parties like Reform.

The Conservatives have lost two more seats in recent minutes.

The Liberal Democrats have won their first seat of the night, in Harrogate and Knaresborough, Yorkshire. That's a promising start to a night in which Ed Davey's party is projected to win 61 seats, a massive rise from the 11 it took in 2019.

Sky News is also reporting that Labour has taken Stroud from the Conservatives' Siobhan Baillie.

Exit polls are predicting hundreds of losses for the ruling party, so this is just the start.

A sitting Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister has been voted out in his constituency of Swindon South.

Robert Buckland, Justice Minister from 2019 to 2021, lost to Heidi Alexander, who was previously an MP in a different constituency. She overturned a majority of over 6,000 to win by 9,606.

In a speech given after results were announced, Alexander said it was the "honour of my life to have been elected to represent my hometown", and pledged to "restore honesty, decency and integrity to politics".

Buckland urged his own party to "make the right choice" at the current political crossroads, railing at those who view "politics as a mere circus" while "saying things that they know to be untrue".

Both seemed to be making a pretty clear statement about the perceived moral failings of the last few years of British politics.

One of Keir Starmer's first moves after being appointed Prime Minister would be to name his ministerial team, the cabinet.

A very good indicator would be to look at the personalities who have sat in his shadow cabinet, and campaigned as spokespeople on particular policies.

That would imply:

• Rachel Reeves as the UK's first ever female finance minister (Chancellor of the Exchequer)
• David Lammy as Foreign Secretary
• Yvette Cooper as Home Secretary
• Ed Miliband, himself a former Labour leader, as Minister for Energy and Net Zero
• Angela Rayner as Deputy Prime Minister, responsible for housing.

Appointments could happen as soon as tomorrow.

The traditional race to be the first seat to declare has been won - by the north-eastern English constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South.

Labour's Bridget Phillipson will re-enter parliament after gaining 18,847 votes, it was declared just an hour and a quarter after polls closed.

But there was a strong performance by Sam Woods-Brass, standing for Nigel Farage's Reform Party, who took 11,668 votes, pushing the Conservatives into third place.

Here's our profile of the man likely to be named UK Prime Minister tomorrow.

Unless the exit polls are wronger than they've ever been, of course.

Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next UK Prime Minister?

Polls suggest the 61-year-old lawyer turned Labour politician could win a significant majority in the UK general election. #EuropeDecoded

Exit polls published show a convincing victory for Keir Starmer's Labour Party - but how did others do?

If confirmed, the Conservatives would be left with a crushing defeat, with just 131 MPs, lower than they've been in modern political history.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage's Reform Party, a successor to the UK Independence Party that campaigned for Brexit, is predicted to win a remarkable 13 MPs, possibly including Farage himself.

The Scottish National Party, which took 48 of Scotland's 59 seats in 2019, may see its dominance in Westminster end, after being predicted to fall to just 10 MPs.

Keir Starmer's Labour Party is set to win 410 seats in the House of Commons, giving the left-wing party a huge majority, according to an exit poll.

If confirmed, Starmer will be appointed Prime Minister as soon as tomorrow.

Rishi Sunak, the Conservative who has led the country since 2022, suffered a crushing defeat, left with just 131 MPs, the poll said.

Sunak is set to have significant control over the House of Commons, the UK's main legislative chamber, for a term of up to five years.

The poll, published after voting ended at 10pm UK time, was carried out by Ipsos for multiple UK broadcasters.

The result will be confirmed by counts in the UK's 650 constituencies over the coming hours, but exit polls have in recent years proved relatively accurate. While individual numbers may change, that seems unlikely to affect the overall result.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May is among those being awarded a life peerage by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, multiple media outlets are reporting.

That would allow her to sit in the House of Lords, the UK's upper legislative chamber, for life. May is not seeking re-election this year, after serving as an MP since 1997.

Peerages are also are being offered to former Defence Minister Ben Wallace and Graham Brady, who chaired the backbench MP committee that played a key role in unseating Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, he reports.

Prime Ministers are traditionally allowed to propose peerages to the Monarch on dissolving Parliament, as Sunak did to call the election.

In the UK, it’s the Monarch, as Head of State, who appoints the Prime Minister, on the basis of who commands support in the House of Commons. 

The departing Prime Minister will be summoned to Buckingham Palace to submit his resignation to King Charles – it's a short drive away from the official residence at Downing Street.

The King will then ask the victor to form a government. In between, executive power theoretically rests with the King – though in modern times that interim period will probably only last a matter of minutes. 

In practice, if the result is clear – as polls predict it will be – this will all take place on Friday. When there’s no majority, it can take a little longer, though it’s in general that’s a few days rather than the months that coalition formation can take in other European countries.

Appointing Liz Truss Prime Minister was one of Queen Elizabeth II's last official acts before she passed away in September 2022.

Far from the high drama of the House of Commons, it's a different kind of housing voters have at the front of their concerns.

Euronews’ Mared Gwyn Jones examines one of the key issues for many Britons - a crisis that's leaving over a million waiting for accommodation, or forced to accept unsafe living conditions.

UK election: Cost of living, chronic housing shortage on voters’ minds

More than 1.2 million families are on a waiting list for social housing in England alone.

This is Jack Schickler, taking over duty on the Euronews UK election liveblog. I'll be with you until the wee small hours of the morning, as British politics undergoes a likely seismic shake-up.

Beneath the headline results, one sub-theme to look out for tonight is how the Green party are doing. 

Despite a foothold in local politics, and Westminster vote share estimated as 5 to 7%, the Greens are expected to gain a maximum four out of the 650 seats, with many polls putting them on zero. 

Many see this as emblematic of the unfairness of the UK’s first-past-the-post system, where only the winner in each seat takes the prize.

A party that comes second in every single constituency will have nothing to show for it, while those – like the Scottish Nationalists – whose support is geographically concentrated can do extremely well. 

This year the Greens aren’t helped by the fact that Caroline Lucas, a former MEP who’s currently the party’s only representative in the House of Commons, is stepping down from her seat in Brighton, southern England.

Party activists will be also hoping for successes in Bristol, Waveney Valley, or North Herefordshire – but the system may stand against them.

Before I hand over to my colleague Jack Schickler and bid you good evening, let me close with a bit of nostalgia tinged with schadenfreude that almost all the UK media have been indulging in today…

One of the most memorable moments in the 1997 election that saw Labour return to power after 18 years of Conservative government was undoubtedly the demise of Conservative heavyweight Michael Portillo, who was asked on live television whether he was “ready to drink hemlock yet” as the exit poll results rolled in and the scale of his party’s defeat became clear.

Shortly afterward Portillo went off to face personal defeat as he lost his own supposedly safe seat. The man once tipped to lead his party, and possibly the country, subsequently bowed out of politics after six years on the opposition benches.

This time round, many prominent if not necessarily quite so heavyweight Tories have already stood down rather than risk facing a ‘Portillo moment’ of their own (75 of them, according to this round-up). Among them are prominent Brexiteer Michael Gove, hapless Brexit negotiator Theresa May, and Covid-era health minister Matt Hancock.

Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson was spared agonising over potential defeat, having quit his seat in June last year after being handed a parliamentary privileges committee report into the so-called Partygate scandal over champagne-fuelled jollies at Number 10.

So who’s risking it?

-         Well, there’s Liz Truss, whose 49-day tenure as prime minister was the shortest in history apart from a couple of forgotten 18^th century Earls. She was hounded out of office after a stab at tax-slashing neoliberal economics led to financial turmoil and rocketing mortgage repayments.

-         The perennially pinstriped Jacob Rees-Mogg – affectionately referred to as ‘the honourable member for the 18^th century’, less affectionately regarded as an animated caricature of an over-privileged toff – is also standing for re-election.

-         Jeremy Hunt, who Truss drafted in as chancellor (finance minister) after – as a fellow Tory MP put it – throwing the co-author of her above ‘mini budget’ Kwasi Kwarteng under a bus, is also seen as a potential departee tonight.

-         Lastly in this admittedly speculative line-up is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak himself, who – according to a report yesterday in Labour-supporting newspaper The Guardian – may have confided to close associates that he fears losing his constituency in North Yorkshire. If he did it would be a first for a sitting prime minister.

As for Portillo himself, he went on to a lucrative career as the pastel-clad and jovial host of a series of television travel programmes, where he rode some of Europe’s more picturesque train lines with Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guidebook in hand.

Scotland is not immune to a possibly seismic shift in its political landscape after today’s votes are counted.

One of several reasons the Labour Party has been out of power for 14 years in the UK is that lost sway north of the border to the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), especially in the industrial heartlands. The SNP swept the board in 2017, tasking 56 of 59 Scottish seats in Westminster.

It had already been running the show in Holyrood, the devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, overtaking Labour in 2007 and putting itself in a position to force a national referendum in 2014 on independence from the UK (which it lost when 55.3% voted to remain).

But in recent years, the SNP has taken a battering, with the shock resignation of stalwart leader Nicola Sturgeon in February 2023 amid controversy over the party’s gender recognition bill and questions within her own party about her strategy of pushing for another referendum. Shortly afterwards, her husband was arrested amid a long-unfolding controversy over SNP finances.

Now Labour, and the Liberal Democrats, are hoping to regain lost seats in Scotland. On the eve of the vote, SNP First Minister John Swinney warned that, unlike in England, the result of the election was “on a knife edge”.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has kept up a running commentary on social media this afternoon as he rockets round Glasgow and surrounding towns, drumming up support for the party’s “fantastic” and “brilliant’ candidates.

Pollster YouGov has published the results of a survey of voter attitudes to the UK's winner-takes-all, first past the post electoral system.

The poll showed 54% supporting changing the voting system from 'first past the post' to 'proportional representation'. Only 16% actively opposed the idea, and 30% said they 'don't know'.

To adopt a PR-based system would be to align with almost all European other democracies, who have at least a component of proportional representation in their systems.

What electoral reform proposals would Britons support? | YouGov

A notably exception is France, whose legislative election goes into a second round on Sunday, with president Emmanuel Macron's liberal Ensemble group forced into an uncomfortable alliance with the far-left in a bid to keep Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally out of power.

Brexit may be the referendum vote most clearly in memory, but a less remembered UK national plebiscite was held in 2011 on reforming the electoral system. The perennially under-represented Liberal Democrats had demanded a vote on adopting a PR-based system as a condition for forming a coalition with the Conservatives after the latter's lacklustre election performance the previous year

In the end, however, all they got was a referendum on an 'alternative vote' system similar to that used in Australia, where citizens have to rank candidates in order of preference and votes deemed unused are transferred to other candidates.

Perhaps because of the complexity of the proposition, it was rejected by just over two-thirds of the 42% who turned out to vote.

The biggest 'no' in YouGov's poll - conducted on 2-3 July - was given to changing the voting age from 18 to 16, an idea that was opposed by 57% of respondents.

The full title of the entity that's holding its general election today is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The full name of the governing Tory party is the Conservative and Unionist Party.

Northern Ireland has 18 of the UK's 650 seats in parliament (it also, like Scotland and Wales, has a devolved national assembly).

The republican party Sinn Féin has come a long way since the 1980s, when it was routinely described in BBC broadcasts as 'the political wing of the IRA' - the terrorist Irish Republican Army.

In 2022, Sinn Féin came top in the Northern Ireland Assembly election, overtaking the Democratic Unionist Party with 29% of votes. This year - after protracted horse trading, which goes with the territory - it secured the post of First Minister in the shape of Michelle O’Neill.

So...what about the general election?

Sinn Féin currently have 7 seats (a peculiarity is that they refuse to sit in Westminster, which they don't recognise as the legitimate seat of government). They hope to become the biggest party in Northern Ireland, which supporters would see as another step towards reunification.

It would certainly mean a majority of Northern Irish seats in Westminster would be left empty.

The Democratic Unionist Party had until recently eight of the 18 seats in Westminster, but is now also on seven after leader Jeffrey Donaldson stepped down in March amid allegations of historical sex offences, which he denies.

Despite its unionist moniker, the Tories, like Labour and the Lib Dems, do not field candidates in Northern Ireland.

Euronews' reporter Mared Gwyn Jones has been speaking to voters as they cast their ballots in central London.

The key word is "change." Many voters say that the country is in a dire state, with the health service under immense strain, a cost-of-living crisis that continues to bite and the general sense that the country is "broken."

While some are enthusiastic about a potential switch to a Labour government under Keir Starmer, others have simply lost faith in politics and say they will use their vote in protest.

In recent days, the margin of Labour's lead in opinion polls has dipped slightly, with the Conservatives essentially conceding defeat but urging people to limit Labour's projected "supermajority." The Labour party has reacted with fierce criticism, accusing their opponents of trying to suppress the vote.

The country of 3 million people is one of the most solid Labour strongholds in the United Kingdom - Welsh Labour governs in Cardiff and has done so since the start of devolution.

But the ‘Red Wall’ of traditionally Labour seats that dramatically turned blue in the 2019 election - when voters lent their support to Boris Johnson as he pledged to ‘get Brexit done’ - also stretches into north-east Wales. Those seats could turn back red this time, with some polls suggesting the Conservatives will fail to get any seats in Wales.

This Labour dominance persists despite a recent wave of controversy surrounding the Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething, who earlier this year accepted a  £200,000 contribution to his campaign to become Welsh Labour leader from a controversial waste company.

Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, is also hoping to edge its seat share up to four, as it strengthens its grasp on the Welsh-speaking heartlands of the north and west.  The party can only run in Wales, but leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has managed to build up a profile for himself across the four nations with appearances in national leaders’ debates.

The last opinion poll by Ipsos, conducted on 1-3 July, has the Lib Dems on 11% support, just two percentage points ahead of the Greens, and four behind Nigel Farage's Reform UK.

Under the UK's first-past-the-post system, these figures are extremely unlikely to refelect the number of seats each party will win.

You need support concentrated in a small number of constituencies to convert it into representation in parliament: hence the fact the Greens have only ever had one MP despite polling 2.7% last time round in 2019 (2.7% of 650 is 17 seats in parliament).

Farage has been similarly hamstrung by the UK electoral system (leaving aside arguments about his influence on Tory policy). In 2015, his UK Independence Party (UKIP) won 12.6% of the national vote, despite the Tories under former prime minister David Cameron having promised a referendum on EU membership. They, likewise, returned just one MP to Westminster. Do the maths.

As a last example: In 2017, the year after the referendum to leave the UK, Labour scored 40% of the vote under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer's predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. The Conservatives beat them with 42.4%. The result? Labout got 262 seats to the Conservatives' 318.

This is why it's hard to predict the precise implications the Ipsos poll putting support for Labour at 37% (down five points from last week) and the Conservatives on 19% (no change), beyond an almost certain Labour win.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer arrived to cast his vote in north London around 09.30 local time this morning, accompanied by his wife Rachel.

The favourite to become the next prime minister surprised reporters when he decided to leave the polling station through the backdoor rather than coming out to greet the crowds once again.

Euronews' reporter Mared Gwyn Jones was at the scene.

No, that's not Nigel Farage, Reform UK (and former UK Independence Party) leader and Brexit prime mover. It's the local pier (that's a kind of bridge that goes nowhere, to those unfamiliar with the peculiarly British institution).

Nevertheless, the former City of London trader is on the hustings in the faded resort town of Clacton-on-Sea, hoping to turn a groundswell of support for his anti-immigrant party into a hitherto elusive seat in the UK parliament in Westminster.

...here's prime ministerial hopeful Keir Starmer on his way to the polling station at his Holborn and St Pancras constituency in London.

That's 'hoe-bun', by the way. St Pancras is already well known...if only for it's link - via the Chunnel - to 'Europe'.

Sunak has upped his rhetoric: higher taxes under Labour could now last "for the rest of your life", not merely "for a generation". The relative impact of the two scenarios would, presumably, depend on the life expectancy of the voter.

The Liberal Democrats, hoping to recover support lost after a coalition alliance with the Tories in the hung parliament of 2010, are hoping for a boost from a diverse array of disgruntled, even canine, voters.

Returning - for the first of today's titbits of UK electoral law, and indeed, lore - to Prime Minister Sunak's dire warning as he dropped his ballot in the box this morning: let's consider what he might mean by a Labour "supermajority".

The most famous supermajority in the EU is probably that enjoyed by Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, which, after winning two-thirds of seats in the unicameral parliament in 2010, allowed it to rewrite the country's constitution and redesign it's electoral system.



The UK, famously, has no written constitution. It is also famous for being what Lord Hailsham described in 1976 as an "elective dictatorship". The implication is that if a party wins over half the seats in parliament, it effectively has a legislative free hand (providing, of course, that discipline is maintained in the party ranks).

So perhaps Sunak simply means "an absolute majority", as opposed to Labour merely getting more seats than any other party and a relatively rare situation known in the UK as a "hung parliament". Recent polls have suggested it's not impossible Starmer could trump (absolutely no pun intended) Blair's 1997 victory, where 'New Labour' won 419 seats, and an absolute majority of 179, which is still the record.

For those of you still unfamiliar with Sunak's putative nemesis, here's my colleague Jack Schickler's bite-sized bio of the man who appears to be leading the UK Labour Party from a historic electoral drubbing in the febrile 'Brexit' election of 2019 to a possibly historic victory over the the Conservatives.

Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next UK Prime Minister?

Polls suggest the 61-year-old lawyer turned Labour politician could win a significant majority in the UK general election. #EuropeDecoded

The beleaguered Conservative prime minister turned up early to vote in his Richmond, Yorkshire, constituency in the north of England, hammering home on social media two of his core campaign messages:

(1)  A Labour landslide would mean high taxes for a generation – which seems to imply somewhat pessimistically that a loss today would shut the Tories, as his party is also known, out of power for decades, and...

(2)  A Labour "supermajority" is to be feared and must be avoided at all costs.

Good morning! This is Robert Hodgson of Euronews' policy team bringing you rolling updates on news from the UK and Brussels as voters (armed with the now compulsory photo ID) cast their ballots in a general election that pollsters predict could see the biggest swing to the left since Tony Blair was swept to power in 1997's Labour landslide win. While the real news action starts at 10pm local time, when the first exit polls will be published, stay with us as we navigate the calm before the storm.