UK elections: what happened and what’s next

The Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK general election, winning hundreds of seats across the country and bringing to an end 14 years of Conservative rule.

Sir Keir Starmer is due to be appointed prime minister later on Friday, bringing to an end a turbulent era in which five Conservative leaders have run the country.

Outgoing Chancellor Rishi Sunak conceded defeat outside a rain-soaked No 10 Downing Street on Friday morning and wished Sir Keir every success for his new government. He took responsibility for the outcome and said he would step down as party leader in the coming months.

Earlier, the Labour leader delivered an impassioned victory speech promising to “renew the nation” and vowed to put “country first, party second”.

“We have earned our mandate to rekindle that fire,” Sir Keir told jubilant Labour activists in London. “Our mandate is no less than to renew the ideas that hold this country together.”

The result marks a stunning reversal from the 2019 election, in which veteran left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party suffered its worst electoral defeat in almost a century.

Meanwhile, former Conservative minister Robert Buckland, who lost his seat, described the election as “electoral Armageddon” for the Conservative party.

This is expected to be the party’s worst result in nearly 200 years and will set up a battle over its future direction in the coming weeks.

It’s been a long night and here’s what the results mean:

There are 650 members of Parliament in the British House of Commons. Each “seat” represents a separate constituency, or area, somewhere in the country.

So far, Labour has won 412 seats, while the Conservatives have fallen to just 121 and the centrist Liberal Democrats have won 71. Reform UK, the Brexit Party’s successor, is expected to win four seats, as is the left-wing Green Party.

Labour’s rise was partly helped by the collapse of the Scottish National Party (SNP), which was hit by a series of disputes over its finances and saw its numbers drop to just nine seats overnight.

The 170 seats Labour is expected to win in the House of Commons is a huge number, but it is still short of the majority of 179 it won under Tony Blair in the 1997 general election.

But more broadly, the 2019 general election victory for the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson gave it a majority of 80 seats, which is seen as a very strong achievement.

Remember: when one party has a majority, it means they don’t have to rely on other parties to pass bills. The bigger the majority, the easier it is to pass a bill.

However, there were several notable cases of Labor losing to independent candidates who campaigned on pro-Gaza platforms, particularly in areas with large Muslim populations.

Labour has faced growing pressure over its stance on the conflict. In February it called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, but critics said it had come to that position too late.

Center-left parties in other Western countries were closely watching the developments ahead of the election, fearing a backlash from their home voters over their support for Israel.

With each precinct broadcast live on television and all the candidates standing side-by-side on stage to announce the results, several key moments occurred.

Perhaps most notably Defeat of Liz Truss. The former First Minister served in office for just 49 days before being ousted by her party. She was narrowly defeated by Labour in South West Norfolk, a constituency she had previously held an overwhelming majority of 24,180 votes.

Jacob Rees-MoggThe former Conservative business secretary and staunch Brexit supporter was one of the big losers, having lost his East Somerset Hanham seat to Labour.

He told the BBC he “cannot blame anyone but myself” for the defeat but saw a “small glimmer of hope” in the fact the Conservatives would be “at least the official opposition”, and noted concerns the party may not even have an official opposition at all.

Grant ShappsDefence Secretary John McCain appeared shaken by the loss of his seat in the south of England.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Penny MordauntShe also lost her seat after running against Rishi Sunak in the party leadership election before he became chancellor.

As the night went on, other Conservative ministers also lost their seats, including Education Minister Gillian Keegan, Culture Minister Lucy Fraser and Veterans Affairs Minister Johnny Mercer.

but Jeremy HuntJohnson, who serves as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Britain’s equivalent of Chancellor of the Exchequer, retained his seat but saw his share of the vote drop significantly.

Mr Sunak also won his Yorkshire seat comfortably by around 12,000 votes but conceded defeat in his acceptance speech, confirming that his party had lost the election.

The Labour Party also lost two key MPs. Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debonair Both men were expected to join Keir Starmer’s next cabinet.

Things move pretty fast in British politics, with very little time between the election result and the new Prime Minister being sworn in.

Rishi Sunak is due to step down from 10 Downing Street, Britain’s equivalent of the White House, within 24 hours and be replaced swiftly by Sir Keir Starmer.

But there is a process: Mr Sunak must tender his resignation to the monarch and Sir Keir must then be formally invited by the monarch to form the next government at a meeting, usually held at Buckingham Palace.

The Prime Minister will then perform the traditional walk around Downing Street as media from around the world watches, before addressing the nation from the steps of Number 10.

The Prime Minister will then invite leading Labour Party members to Downing Street and appoint them to a new Cabinet.

Before submitting his resignation to the King, Sunak wished his successor well.

“His success is our success and I wish him and his family all the best,” Sunak said. “Even if we have had our differences in this race, he is a great and public-spirited man and I have great respect for him.”

Comparatively speaking, he is a relative newcomer to the political world.

Sir Keir began his career as a barrister in the 1990s and was appointed Director of Public Prosecutions, the highest ranking criminal prosecutor in England and Wales, in 2008.

He was first elected in 2015 in his north London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras and became leader after Labour’s poor performance in the 2019 general election, pledging to start a “new era” after Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing leadership.

Sir Keir was re-elected in the same constituency on Thursday and in his victory speech said the nation was “ready for change” and promised to “end meritocracy”.

“Change starts right here, because this is your democracy, this is your community, this is your future,” he said. “You voted, and now it’s time for us to deliver.”

The political party that emerged in this election was Reform UK, the right-wing successor to the Brexit Party and the UK Independence Party.

The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, finally won a seat after eight tries, but the party’s tally fell to four seats instead of the 13 it had initially predicted. But it was still better than the seats won by UKIP and the Brexit Party, and Mr Farage was in celebration.

The party is expected to receive around 14% of the vote.

The reformists faced controversy during the election over offensive comments made by some candidates and activists.

Mr Farage will be joined in the House of Commons by former Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson, Reform Party founders Richard Tice and Rupert Lowe.

From its new position in Parliament, the party could seek to create problems for the Conservatives and win over more voters from the rest of the party’s support base.