Exit Poll: Labour predicted to win a landslide victory

By ITV News Producer Hannah Ward-Glenton

The Labour Party is predicted to win a landslide victory in the General Election, according to an exit poll by Ipsos UK for ITV News/Sky News/BBC.

Labour and Keir Starmer look to have won an overall majority in excess of 100.

The poll suggests the swing will be close to the all-time record of 12.1% at the first post-war General Election in 1945.

On the basis of the poll that interviewed 20,401 people in 133 polling stations across the United Kingdom, the BBC, ITN News and Sky News are forecasting Labour will win with a majority of 170 - while the Conservatives will fall to 131 seats.

The forecasted big victory could be built on a relatively small share of the electorate, with Labour having benefited more from the collapse of the Conservatives in terms of seats gained rather than share of the vote won. An uptick in support for smaller parties is likely to have contributed to this.

The Conservatives have fallen back sharply in all areas and look likely to have recorded their lowest ever share of the vote in a General Election, stretching right back to the birth of modern elections in 1832.

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said the Labour party is "very encouraged" by the exit poll.

"[The poll] shows that 14 years of the Conservatives where they've had chaos and decline, people are really punishing them for that record of failure," Rayner said.

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner was forced to grab an umbrella while giving her response to the exit poll as rain started to pour in Manchester

"It's incredible that so many people, it looks like, have given Labour that opportunity. And if we do have that opportunity with all of those fantastic candidates that we put forward... As Keir Starmer says, if Labour does win power tonight, it's about putting country first, party second, and we're all very clear about that."

Former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne congratulated "Prime Minister Starmer" shortly after the exit poll was released, described the predicted Labour victory as "an incredible win".

"[Starmer] and Rachel Reeves did a brilliant job of reassuring the country that there was no risk [with] changing to Labour," Osborne said.

"As for the Conservatives, it's going to sound odd - there'll be a bit of a sigh of relief. Even though it's the worst result since 1832 when the Duke of Wellington was running the Tory party. This feels more like the Tory party's Waterloo frankly."

Geographical variation in the support for the Conservatives has been driven by an upsurge in support for Reform UK. The poll shows that Nigel Farage's party is eating into the Conservative vote in pro-Leave Conservative seats where the Brexit Party did not stand last time.

That has helped to push Labour through the middle to make gains.

There appears to be a trend of constituencies that favoured UKIP in 2015 moving to Labour in this election. This could be read as Labour appealing to Leave voters, but there is another explanation, Professor of Political Science and British Politics Jane Green said.

"What I think is happening is Reform is appealing to Leave voters, those people that voted Conservative last time. That's dampening the Conservative share, that's allowing the Labour party to get ahead.

That trend could be particularly significant in Clacton, which is Nigel Farage's seat, she added.

"It's going to be hugely significant that Reform are helping Labour."

Labour has made advances in seats where they are a clear challenger to the Conservatives, but less so in typically Labour-voting areas.

Former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls said that the "wise heads" in Labour will recognise "risks" in this result.

"Look at the surge in Reform, gaining 13 seats on this exit poll. We'll wait to see what Labour's share of the vote is, but this may not be a great share of the vote for Labour," Balls said.

"This is a very, very volatile political time that we are in. There'll be people who look across and see what Macron has achieved when he won just a few years ago and how quickly that has turned around to disaster with the rise of the far right in France," he added.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage posted a video on X just after midnight to say that the party's results so far were "almost unbelievable", adding that it meant they were "going to win seats, many many seats".

You can find out when your constituency is likely to declare its results below

The poll also shows a decisive swing to Labour in Conservative seats that had strongly voted Leave in the EU Referendum in 2016, showing that the 'red wall' appears to have been rebuilt.

Areas with a high number of mortgages also appear to have had a pro-Labour reaction to Rishi Sunak's government.

The Liberal Democrats appear to have recovered, particularly in constituencies where seats were lost following the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition.

A raft of seats south and west of London, reaching as far as Cornwall, look set to fall to Ed Davey's party following its carefully targeted campaign.

The Greens have polled particularly well in places with a large number of younger voters, with their popularity increasing in some safe Labour areas.

Predicting the result in Scotland is challenging because of the different pattern of party competition and the large number of marginal seats. It may be that the SNP has seen a significant decrease, which is likely to lead to gains for Labour, as well as the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

When posed with the question of whether people in Scotland would describe the projected results as "all [her] fault", former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "Absolutely, I don't doubt that at all."

"This is at the grimmer end of expectations for the SNP if the exit poll is right, and... I suspect it will be broadly right. This is seismic for Labour... There's also a question about this massive mandate Labour now has and what actually is it a mandate for," Sturgeon said.

She added that a double whammy of a "depressed turnout" of SNP voters due to a lack of enthusiasm and a genuine swing to Labour.

"I think that Reform is a big big problem. I suspect they will not perform anything like [the Blyth and Ashington result of more than 10,000 votes] in Scotland, but across the UK... Mainstream parties really have to get to grips with this or this is going to be a continuous destablisation effect in years to come."

It is also important to emphasise that the exit poll is a forecast of the results and there is a margin of error which means that the actual results may differ from the poll.

Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that there is still "a lot to play out" overnight, and added that the predicted Tory victory was by no means a given.

"I still can't quite believe that the Conservatives are down to the sorts of numbers that are being predicted, that's just my sense, but let us see," he said.

You can watch the General Election results live on ITV 1, ITVX and on YouTube as we bring you all the updates and expert analysis through the night.

What happens now?

After the exit poll results started to trickle in, with Sunderland being the first to call.

Between 1992 and 2015 Sunderland was always the fastest, but in the last two elections Newcastle has beaten them to it.

For this election Newcastle ruled itself out of winning the race because of boundary changes and staffing uncertainties, while Sunderland has said it expects all three of its seats to declare before 1am.

Former Justice Minister Sir Robert Buckland was the first senior Conservative to lose their seat as Swindon South voted in Labour's Heidi Alexander

Results will continue to appear throughout the night and into the morning.

How does the exit poll work? And is it accurate?

Exit polls are the most accurate poll carried out before the General Election results are declared because it is based on people who have already voted.

20,401 people were selected at random from 133 locations and asked who they voted for - this is done in private on a ballot paper, to replicate the anonymity of filling out the real ballot paper.

That data is then analysed to give a national exit poll prediction of how many MPs each party is likely to gain in the next parliament.

Exit poll predictions have become more accurate with time, but there is always a margin of error.

In 2019 the forecast of a Conservative majority of 86 seats was very close to the final 80-seat victory margin.

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