Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has won the UK general election, telling joyous supporters: “We did it.”
The party crossed the line with more than 150 seats still to declare, as it heads for a forecasted majority of 170.
The Tories are set for the worst result in their history, with just 144 MPs.
Speaking in central London, Sir Keir said “change begins now”, adding “it feels good, I have to be honest”.
It came minutes after Tory leader Rishi Sunak conceded defeat, saying the Labour Party “has won this general election” and that he takes “full responsibility” for the Conservatives’ loss.
The prime minister said he had called Sir Keir to “congratulate him on his victory”.
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”.
Reform 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.
The Scottish National Party is now forecast to be reduced to just eight MPs, as Labour regains dominance in Scotland.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has won the UK general election, telling joyous supporters: “We did it.”
The party crossed the line with more than 150 seats still to declare, as it heads for a forecasted majority of 170.
The Tories are set for the worst result in their history, with just 144 MPs.
Speaking in central London, Sir Keir said “change begins now”, adding “it feels good, I have to be honest”.
It came minutes after Tory leader Rishi Sunak conceded defeat, saying the Labour Party “has won this general election” and that he takes “full responsibility” for the Conservatives’ loss.
The prime minister said he had called Sir Keir to “congratulate him on his victory”.
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”.
Reform 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.
The Scottish National Party is now forecast to be reduced to just eight MPs, as Labour regains dominance in Scotland.
Penny Mordaunt, who lost to Labour by just 780 votes, 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.”.
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”.
