UK general election live

Live Commentary

11:24am There’s still one seat left to declare, a large rural Scottish seat that’s expected to go to the Lib Dems. That final seat is expected to declare at 7:30pm AEST today. I will post final results from the UK and Scotland after that declaration. Tomorrow I will have a post on the French parliamentary election runoffs.

8:01am Saturday Northern Ireland’s 18 seats split seven Sinn Fein (steady since 2019), five Democratic Unionists (down three), two Social Democratic and Labour (steady), one Alliance (steady), one Ulster Unionist (up one), one Traditional Unionist (up one) and one independent (up one). Vote shares were 27% SF (up 4), 22% DUP (down 9), 11% SDLP (down 4), 15% Alliance (down 2), 12% UUP (up 0.5) and 6% TUV (new).

6:39pm I’ve done an article for The Conversation on the UK results. The key takeaway is that, while Labour won a seat landslide, their vote share of 33.8% was only ten points ahead of the Tories, when final polls had them 18 points up, and it trailed the combined Tory and Reform vote share (38.0%). This vote share is the lowest for any party that has won a majority in the UK.

4:31pm The Tories have lost four seats previously held by their PMs tonight, two to Labour and two to the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems won Margaret Thatcher’s old seat of Maidenhead and David Cameron’s Witney, while Labour won Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge as well as defeating Truss.

4:14pm Liz Truss is out of parliament after being defeated by 27-25 by Labour in her South-West Norfolk seat, with 23% Reform and 14% for an independent. Labour’s vote was up 8 with Truss down 43.

3:52pm The Greens gain North Herefordshire from the Tories by 43-32, on a 34-point swing to the Greens and a 31-point slump for the Tories. The Greens easily held their one existing seat of Brighton Pavilion.

3:02pm The Greens gain Waveney Valley from the Tories by 42-30, a 32% swing to the Greens and a 32% drop for the Tories. Reform won 16% (new) and Labour 9% (down 9 owing to tactical voting).

2:27pm Labour GAINS North-East Somerset from Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg, a fervent supporter of Boris Johnson. 41% Labour (up 14), 30% Tories (down 25) and 15% Reform (new).

2:11pm After 479 of 650, Labour has WON an overall majority, with 333 seats (up 155). The Tories have 72 (down 171), the Lib Dems 46 (up 39), Reform four (up four), the SNP four (down 34), independents four (up four) and Plaid four (up two). Vote share changes are Labour up 1.4, Tories down 19.5, Lib Dems up 0.3, Reform up 12 and Greens up 4.

1:32pm After 30 of 57 Scottish seats, 23 Labour (up 22), four SNP (down 23), two Lib Dems (up one) and one Tory (steady). Vote share changes are Labour up 18.5 and SNP down 15.5.

1:27pm After 332 of 650 seats (more than halfway through now), 245 Labour (up 111), 42 Tories (down 122), 27 Lib Dems (up 23), four Reform (up four), four SNP (down 21) and three Plaid (up two). Vote share changes are Labour up 1.2, Tories down 19.5, Lib Dems none, Reform up 12.5 and Greens up 4.2.

1:20pm The Greens crushed Labour in Bristol Central by 57-33, a 31-point gain for the Greens and a 26-point slump for Labour.

1:15pm Something went wrong for Labour in Leicester. They lost Leicester East to the Tories and now Leicester South to an independent, who defeated Labour by 35-33, a 35% drop for Labour.

1:09pm After 266 of 650 seats, 196 Labour (up 85), 32 Tories (down 99), 23 Lib Dems (up 20), four SNP (down 14), three Reform (up three), two Plaid (up two) and one Green (up one). Vote share changes are Labour up 1.0, Tories down 20, Lib Dems no change, Reform up 13 and Greens up four.

1:02pm Reform leader Nigel Farage easily wins Clacton, defeating the Tories by 46-28 with 16% for Labour. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn easily wins Islington North as an independent, defeating Labour by 49-34. A pre-election seat poll had Corbyn trailing by 43-29.

12:31pm After 141 of 650 seats, 110 Labour (up 41), 14 Tories (down 49), 14 Lib Dems (up 11), one Reform (up one), one SNP (down five) and one Plaid (up one). Vote share changes are Labour up 0.7, Tories down 19, Lib Dems down 0.1, Reform up 12.5 and Greens up 4.

12:24pm The Tories have GAINED Leicester East from Labour, very much against the trend. 31% Tories (down 7), 22% Labour (down 29!), 13.5% Lib Dem (up 8), 12% independent (new) and 8% One Leicester (new). I believe Labour’s crash here is probably due to the Muslim vote.

12:11pm Labour has won all three seats declared so far in Scotland, gaining all three from the SNP. Labour’s Scottish vote is up 23 points, while the SNP is down 17.

12:05pm After 84 of 650 seats, Labour 73 (up 29), Tories six (down 31), Lib Dems four (up three) and Reform one (up one). Vote share changes are Labour up 1.2, Tories down 20, Lib Dems down 0.4, Reform up 13 and Greens up four.

11:54am The first Scottish seat (Kilmarnock & Loudoun) is a Labour gain from the SNP. 45% Labour (up 26), 33% SNP (down 18), 8% Tories (down 16) and 8% Reform (new).

11:46am Labour lost Hartlepool to the Tories at a by-election in May 2021 when Boris Johnson was popular, but have won it easily at this election. Earlier this year, Labour lost Rochdale at a by-election to George Galloway after their candidate was disendorsed. In the rematch, Labour defeated Galloway by 33-29 with 17% for Reform and 11% Tories.

11:27am Reform WINS their first seat in Ashfield, gaining from the Tories. 43% Reform (up 38), 29% Labour (up three), 16% independent (down 11) and an embarrassing 4th place for the Tories in a seat they held with just 8% (down 31!).

11:14am After 22 of 650 seats, Labour 19 (up seven), Lib Dems two (up two) and Tories just one (down nine). Vote share changes based on these seats’ votes in 2019 are Labour up two, Lib Dems up 0.4, Tories down 22, Reform up 14 and Greens up four.

11:09am Labour GAINS Bridgend in Wales from the Tories. 40% Labour (up one), 19% Reform (up 14), 16% Tories (down 28!), 9% Plaid (up four) and 8% for an independent.

11:05am Labour GAINS Nuneaton from the Tories. 37% Labour (up five), 28.5% Tories (down 32!) and 22% Reform (new).

10:41am Lib Dems GAIN Harrogate & Knaresborough from Tories. 46% Lib Dem (up 10), 30% Tories (down 22), 11% Reform (new) and 8% Labour (down two).

9:39am Labour GAINS Swindon South from the Tories. Labour 48% (up 8), Tories 27% (down 25) and Reform 14% (new).

8:42am It’s a similar story in Blyth & Ashington, Labour up a little, Reform surges and the Tories plunge.

8:37am Labour HOLDS Houghton & Sunderland South, the first seat to be declared. Labour 47% (up 7), Reform 29% (up 13) and Tories 14% (down 19). Turnout was 51% (down six).

7:09am Friday The Exit Poll has Labour on 410 of the 650 seats, the Tories on 131, the Lib Dems 61, Reform 13, the SNP 10, Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists) four and the Greens two. That’s better for the Tories and Reform than expected from pre-election polls, a little worse for Labour and a lot worse for the SNP.

8:45pm I prefer traditional polls, but William has asked me to comment on what the Multilevel Regression with Poststratification (MRP) polls are saying. These have massive sample sizes, with the YouGov MRP the largest sample at almost 48,000. The YouGov MRP agrees well with the ElectionMapsUK forecast below, with 431 Labour seats, 102 Conservatives, 72 Lib Dems and 18 SNP. The Survation MRP is the most bearish for the Conservatives, with just 64 Conservatives, to 484 for Labour and 61 Lib Dems. Fieldwork periods for the MRP polls were at least a week, so they wouldn’t pick up late movement.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The UK general election is today, with polls closing at 7am AEST Friday. The Guardian’s election night guide says The Exit Poll will be released once polls close. The exit poll only gives party seat numbers, not vote shares. In past elections, for example 2015 and 2017, the exit poll has predicted seat numbers at odds with pre-election polls. In these cases, the exit poll has been more accurate.

In the UK, votes are not counted at polling places but transported to a counting location within each seat before they are counted. All times listed here are AEST. The Guardian expects only eight of the 650 House of Commons seats to be declared by 10am Friday. By 12pm, about 85 seats will be in. The big rush of results will come between 12pm and 2pm, with 443 declarations, and the remaining seats should be declared by 4pm with “perhaps a few exceptions”.

The final UK national poll aggregate from ElectionMapsUK has Labour at 39.3%, the Conservatives at 21.4%, the far-right Reform at 16.4%, the Liberal Democrats at 11.0% and the Greens at 6.4%. Polls in the final few days have suggested a small recovery for the Conservatives, with Labour’s lead dropping below 20 points. Individual poll results have been between Labour leads of 13 and 20 points over the Conservatives.

With first past the post, these vote shares result in a Labour landslide. The ElectionMapsUK seat forecast is for Labour to win 436 of the 650 seats, the Conservatives 101, the Lib Dems 66, the Scottish National Party 17, the Greens four and Reform three. While the Conservatives have improved to just above 100 seats, that’s far below the 165 they won at their previous nadir in 1997.

While Labour has led the SNP by single-digit margins in most Scottish polls since March, the final Savanta poll gave the SNP a 34-31 lead over Labour. If true, the SNP could limit its losses after getting 48 of 59 Scottish seats in 2019 to just one for Labour. Seat polls for the Greens have them gaining three seats. In other UK election news, the right-wing tabloid The Sun has endorsed Labour.

French election: candidate withdrawals may block far-right RN from majority

The 577 French lower house seats are elected by a two-round single-member system. In final results of Sunday’s first round, the far-right National Rally (RN) and allies won 33.2%, the left-wing alliance of four parties (NFP) 28.1%, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble 21.3% and the conservative Republicans and other right-wing candidates 10.2%.

Turnout was high at 66.7% of registered voters. This meant 76 seats were filled, where the winner had at least 50% of valid votes and at least 25% of registered votes. It also meant that many third candidates cleared the 12.5% of registered voters required to advance. On these results, 306 seats would go to three-way runoffs and five to four-way runoffs.

In this Sunday’s runoffs, FPTP will be used. To avoid splitting the anti-RN vote, there have been a large number of candidate withdrawals. Now there are only 89 three-way runoffs and two four-way runoffs remaining after the candidate registration deadline on Tuesday.

A Harris poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday gave RN and allies 190-220 seats (240-305 in the Harris poll on first-round election day), the NFP 159-183 seats (140-190) and Ensemble 110-135 (70-120). If this occurs, RN and allies will be well short of the 289 seats needed for a majority.

Biden still dropping in US polls

The US election is on November 5. Before last Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Biden was nearly tied with Trump in FiveThirtyEight’s national poll aggregate (down by only 0.1 point). Biden has now fallen 2.3 points behind, trailing Trump by 42.1-39.8 with 9.7% for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The highly-regarded Siena poll for The New York Times of likely voters gave Trump a five-point lead with third party candidates and a six-point lead without, a 2-3 point movement to Trump since Siena’s pre-debate poll. State polls have not yet caught up to the debate. There’s increasing speculation that Biden may withdraw from the contest. If this occurs, a new candidate will be selected by Democrats at their August 19-22 convention.