Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Admiral Yi]

This is the first time I can remember a play by play on the UK election.

[Josquius]

Is she the one where the tory questioned whether she was actually blind?

Some mildly annoying reporting derived from boundary changes about blyth being a Labour hold rather than gain.

The reform vote is annoying and worrying. There's a woman on channel 4 says she was on the fence between Labour and reform before landing on reform. Just bizzare people can be torn between two polar opposites.
I really get the feeling people don't know what reform are about beyond a vague fuck the system and down with immigrants

Farage also caught lying by moaning about reform not getting enough coverage (hah) when his party spokesman is one of the guests on channel 4

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

First Lib Dem gain in Harrogate and Knaresborough. 16% swing from the Tories to the Lib Dems (and possible sign of tactical voting as Labour are actually down 2%).

Labour have gained Nuneaton. Nuneaton was held by Labour from 1992 to 2010. In the 2015 election it was portrayed as the big bellweather seat, of the type that Labour needed to win back. There was a lot of media coverage of Nuneaton. Instead there was a 3% swing to the Tories who later increased their share of the vote to 60% in 2019. Sunak was there yesterday campaigning. And Labour won with a 19% swing.

That is indicative of a wider interesting feature so far (and a feature of our voting system) - vote share doesn't matter so it's not something successful parties are actually trying to increase. And you're seeing that with Labour's vote. There seems to be low turnout in core Labour areas and in some areas they're even losing votes. But in the seats they need to win to actually form a government most they're getting a far higher swing.

Is she the one where the tory questioned whether she was actually blind?

No, I think there was a Tory candidate who accused his Lib Dem opponent of using his guide dog for political advantage

On Blyth, I think everyone's reporting Blyth as a Labour hold not a gain (because of boundary changes). Their two gains so far are Stroud and Swindon South.

I don't think people necessarily see Labour and Reform as polar opposites. I think this is BBoy's point.

It looks like there'll be issues for both the big parties in their coalitions - I think it looks pretty challenging on both sides.

On Reform literally just saw the BBC guy saying the big story tonight was Reform's performance - while I think the big story is the new government winning 200+ new seats. Reform might be the more interesting narrative but it's not the story.

Edit: Also I'd say the Lib Dems going from 8 to 50+ seats is also a bigger story, but that's just me.

Edit: And mentioned earlier that it looked like Reform were under-performing - this is an example (and there were rumours of Labour losing both Barnsley seats and this one being in more trouble):


Labour won with 18,600 votes (50.4%) to Reform's 10,800 (29.3%). I think the exit polls has probably got the direction of travel but, I think especially with the smaller parties, it is possibly more difficult to model.

[Sheilbh]

Totally separate but lots of chatter that Reform are doing well in Glasgow and other bits of Scotland. It won't, but that should really put paid to the myths that Scotland is significantly different or more progressive than the rest of the UK. Timelines and where protests votes go may be slightly out of sync, but there is a lot more similarity than difference.

Lee Anderson holds his seat, now for Reform - so first elected Reform MP.

Basildon and Billericay, which is the seat the Tory vice-chair was parachuted into, is going into a recount. Apparently it's within 20 votes - not sure who with as the Tories won 67% of the vote last time...I suspect maybe a three-way marginal of Tories, Labour and Reform.

Edit: As with Barnsley, Reform were projected to win Hartlepool in the exit poll. Actual result is Labour on about 16,000 with the Tories on about 8,000 and Reform on about 9,000.  Also Anderson's result is basically the same as when he was a Tory MP. It feels like 13 seats is looking pretty unlikely.

[Sheilbh]

Galloway out

Scottish Labour won their first seat from the SNP in Kilmarnock - coming from third as SNP and Tory votes collapsed.

I always listen to Stephen Bush and on these results he's saying it looks like the Lib Dems and Labour are doing better where they need to, and the Tories and Reform worse. It's got the general picture but what it's not picking up is how efficient the Labour and Lib Dem vote is - so could be underestimating their gains. Eg Labour winning Cannock Chase on a 25% swing.

It's really weird but the broadcasters aren't showing many declarations. Apparently Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, has lost his seat for some reason it's not been shown.

[Sheilbh]

Farage elected in Clacton.

Corbyn also won as an independent.

Some fascinating results in Leicester too. Jonathan Ashworth, a Labour frontbencher, has lot his seat to an independent over Gaza.

And Leicester East (the most British Indian seat in the country) is probably the Tories only gain. It looks, rather worryingly, like the Tories there have become the parties of Hindus, India and Israel while Labour are the party of Muslims, Pakistan and Palestine. It's a little complicated as two former disgraced Labour MPs also ran as independents and picked up some votes - those were Keith Vaz who stepped down at the 2019 election after stories about him hiring rent boys and getting them to buy coke for him and Claudia Webbe who was convicted for harassing a woman who had an affair with her partner.

But so far with less than 200 seats declared, the Tories have lost 63 and the SNP have lost 8

Edit: Interesting divergence between BBC and ITV based on initial results. Basically the BBC thinks the Tories will do better and all other parties doing a little worse than the exit poll. ITV on the other hand think the Tories, Reform and SNP are doing worse, while Labour and the Lib Dems are doing better. My instinct is with ITV - Labour and the Lib Dems are doing a lot better in the areas they actually need to do well in.

Edit: Also very very pleased that the Lib Dems have won Bicester and Woodstock (new seat). The Tory candidate there was Osborne's very close aide and protege - so delighted to see he's lost. Labour gained Lichfield from Michael Fabricant too.

[Sheilbh]

Rumours Liz Truss has not just lost her (very safe) seat, but might have come third...

She had a majority of over 20,000.

Three cabinet ministers gone now as the Chief Whip has lost his seat to Plaid Cymru.

Edit: Really looking forward to her blaming the establishment deep state of South West Norfolk

Edit: Tory chair won Basildon and Billericay in the end after a recount. He got 12,905, Labour 12,885 and Reform 11,354. 20 votes in it.

15 ministers lost their seats so far.

[Valmy]

I see my ancestral constituency went for Labour by 40 points.

[Sheilbh]

There we go - Labour majority. Good speech by Starmer.

Also a good speech by Sunak. It's our first election since January 6 so it's a bit depressing he needs to make those basic points, but good that he did.

Edit: And the 326th seat to declare, giving Labour a majority, was Rees-Mogg losing :lol;

[Tamas]

Labour has taken my constituency from the Torries, by getting about 2% more than them, however the Tories had a bit more than 20% lead last time around. It seems however thst 2/3rd of the lost Tory vote went to Reform.

[Josquius]

Everything went broadly as hoped here. Labour win by a large margin with the greens having a very respectable showing in 3rd.
Sadly as per the rest of the country reform came second.

Sad to see sunak staying in a job.

[crazy canuck]

Lots of stories of Conservative ridings that had huge majorities flipping to Labour.

[Jacob]

Looks like voter turnout was down since last time.

[Josquius]

Looks like voter turnout was down since last time.

That was the thrust of the tory campaign.