General Election exit poll predicts Labour landslide with majority of 170 seats
4 July 2024, 22:04 | Updated: 5 July 2024, 00:25
The official exit poll has predicted a Labour landslide in the 2024 General Election.
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The projection shows a Labour landslide with 410 seats, with the party having a majority of 170 seats.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives are set for 131 seats - which would be the lowest number of Tory MPs on record.
The exit poll also forecasts the Liberal Democrats on 61 seats, Reform UK on 13 and the Green Party on two.
In Scotland, the SNP are expected to secure 10 seats with Plaid Cymru in Wales on four.
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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer thanked those who voted for him and "put their trust in a changed Labour Party".
"To everyone who has campaigned for Labour in this election, to everyone who voted for us and put their trust in our changed Labour Party - thank you," he said.
Read more: Labour wins Houghton & Sunderland South as first seat of 2024 general election declared
Exit Poll: Instant reaction from LBC's Britain Decides hosts
Deputy leader Angela Rayner said the projections were "encouraging" but several seats were on a "knife edge".
"If you look at where we were in 2019, just to get a majority of one we'd have had to have a swing greater than Tony Blair in 1997," she said.
"So we know a number of seats were on a knife edge from our own data, but I also know that all of our activists and our candidates have been going out there not taking anything for granted and speaking to the electorate about what matters to them."
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Just before polls closed, Rishi Sunak tweeted: "To the hundreds of Conservative candidates, thousands of volunteers and millions of voters: Thank you for your hard work, thank you for your support, and thank you for your vote."
Several Cabinet ministers are at risk of losing their seats, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan.
A Tory spokesperson said the poll is a projection, not a result and it's important to "wait to see the actual results come in".
They added: "But if these results are correct, it is clear that Starmer and Angela Rayner will be in Downing Street tomorrow. "That means your taxes will rise and our country will be less secure."
They also note that based on the result, the Tories will have "lost some very good and hard-working candidates".
"There is a long night ahead, and we should wait to see the shape of the government that the people have chosen," they said. "We will know soon enough."
Andrew Marr brands the Tories' election campaign 'astonishingly bad'
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are projected to win more than five times the number of seats they secured at the 2019 election.
Leader Sir Ed Davey said his party was on course for the "best results in a century".
Throughout the campaign, Sir Ed has toured the country in his battle bus called Yellow Hammer 1, taking part in stunts including toppling off a paddleboard in Windermere, playing tennis in Newbury and surfing near Bude in Cornwall.
"I am humbled by the millions of people who backed the Liberal Democrats to both kick the Conservatives out of power and deliver the change our country needs," he said.
"Every Liberal Democrat MP will be a strong local champion for their community standing up for the NHS and care. Whether you voted for us or not, we will work day in and day out and we will not let you down."
The exit poll also suggests that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will be the MP for Clacton.
It is Mr Farage's eighth attempt to become an MP, having failed on each previous attempt.
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Speaking to LBC's Andrew Marr and Shelagh Fogarty, ex-Labour leader Neil Kinnock hailed the exit poll but warned of possible crises ahead.
Lord Kinnock said: "I'm utterly delighted of this massive advance for the Labour Party. And it's huge success for Keir Starmer. I mean, he's gained 208 seats [if the poll is correct].
"And that is phenomenal. That is really attributable directly to him and the way in which has changed with the last four years.
"But I'm also very realistic," he added, saying that his foreboding was "related entirely to looking ahead at problems not of the Labour Party's making, not of Keir Starmer's making."
He said he was worried about "the reality of the scale, the dimension of crises in our public services, all of them and the weakness of our economic performance."
