Live updates: Labour Party wins UK election as Sunak concedes defeat

Liz Truss loses her seat, an epic collapse for the short-lived former prime minister Britain's former Prime Minister Liz Truss has suffered another unprecedented humiliation, losing her seat and being dumped from parliament less than two years after she led the country.

Truss was prime minister for just six weeks, by some distance the shortest stint in British history. Her premiership collapsed after a shambolic financial plan spooked markets and investors and caused the value of the pound to plummet.

Truss lost by 630 votes. She picked up 11,217 votes, to Labour's 11,847.

Rishi Sunak had sought to distance the Conservatives from Truss's tenure, but she nonetheless represented the party in the seat she has held since 2010.

She now becomes the face of the Conservatives' collapse, on an unprecedented night that saw the ruling party thoroughly rejected by the electorate.

Record number of women elected to parliament Seats are still being declared on what has been a gripping election night, but it's already official: There will be a record number of female lawmakers in the new House of Commons when it returns.

It follows a trend from the past few elections in which the number of women in parliament has increased.

So far, some 242 female MPs have been elected to parliament. The previous record set in 2019 was 220. Before that in 2017, it was 207 and 196 in 2015.

In Scotland, SNP loses scores of seats, including several in capital city The Scottish National Party has lost scores of seats across the country, including a number in Scotland's capital city Edinburgh.

The party has lost at least 38 seats in total, including Edinburgh North and Leith, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, and Edinburgh South West — all of which were picked up by the Labour Party.

Most of the seats the SNP lost have been Labour gains, but two, Mid Dunbartonshire and North East Fife, were lost to the Liberal Democrats.

Labour has won a total of 37 seats so far across Scotland. The Conservative Party meanwhile, has only won in one constituency in Scotland so far — Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk.

The left-leaning SNP has led Scotland's devolved government since 2007, and it forced an independence vote in 2014 in which Scottish voters opted to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The SNP descended into disorder last year amid a widely publicized police investigation into the party's financial irregularities, which eroded its public support.

Conservative Party loses all its MPs in Wales The Conservative Party has lost all 14 of its members of parliament in Wales, as Welsh Secretary David TC Davies lost his seat to Labour.

Davies finished second in his constituency of Monmouthshire, with 34.8% of the vote, compared to Labour candidate Catherine Fookes' 41.3%.

Three other former Welsh secretaries lost their seats: Alun Cairns lost to Labour in Vale of Glamorgan, Stephen Crabb lost to Labour in Mid and South Pembrokeshire, and Simon Hart lost to Plaid Cymru in Caerfyrddin.

Australian and Canadian leaders congratulate Starmer Leaders from several Commonwealth nations have started to send well-wishes to Britain's next prime minister Keir Starmer, who will later Friday travel to Buckingham Palace where he will be asked by King Charles to form a government.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a photo of himself and Starmer on X, writing that they have "lots of work ahead."

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sent "congratulations to my friend and new UK Prime Minister on his resounding election victory." He added in a post on X that he was looking "forward to working constructively" with the incoming Labour government.

PM Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will return to parliament, but other prominent MPs have lost their seats With the UK's electoral map changing fundamentally, from a large Conservative majority in 2019 to a large Labour majority this election, numerous prominent politicians have already lost their seats:

Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt was unseated by Labour in the Portsmouth North constituency. Mordaunt, who served as defense secretary in 2019 and before that international development secretary, was first elected as the constituency's Conservative MP in 2010. Defence Secretary Grant Shapps lost the constituency he had been the MP for since 2005, Welwyn Hatfield, which Labour gained. Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk lost his Cheltenham seat to the Liberal Democrats. Prominent right-wing Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg will no longer be an MP after losing in the Somerset North East and Hanham constituency. While Labour candidate Dan Norris received 40.6% of the vote, Rees-Mogg, a prominent Brexiteer who became business secretary under Liz Truss' premiership, came second with 30.2% of the vote. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been unseated by the Liberal Democrats in Chichester. The Conservatives had won Chichester in every general election since 1924, but this time the Liberal Democrats received 49.2% of the vote and the Conservatives only 25.7%.Robert Buckland, previously Welsh secretary (July to October 2022) and justice secretary (2019 to 2021), lost in Swindon South. Buckland received just 26.9% of the vote, while the Labour candidate Heidi Alexander received 48.4%. Alexander was previously the Labour MP for Lewisham East from 2010 to 2018, before resigning from parliament to become deputy mayor of London for transport — a position she held until 2021.Thérèse Coffey, who has held numerous senior government positions including health secretary, was unseated by Labour in the Suffolk Coastal constituency. The Conservatives had won the constituency every election since it was created in 1983, but this time Labour received 31.7% of the vote compared to the Conservatives' 29.5%. Veterans' Minister Johnny Mercer has also found himself without a seat in the new parliament. He lost in the Plymouth Moor View constituency, where Labour won with 41.2% of the vote compared to the Conservatives' 28.1%. In 2019, Mercer won a large majority in the seat, gaining 60.7% of the vote. Conservative chief whip and former Welsh Secretary Simon Hart will also no longer be an MP. He lost in Caerfyrddin, in Wales, coming third place behind both Labour and Plaid Cymru, who won the seat. The Conservative Party's deputy chairman Jonathan Gullis lost in the Stoke-on-Trent North. While in 2019, Gullis won 52.3% of the vote in the constituency, he received just 26.3% this time around. Labour candidate David Williams won the constituency, receiving 40.3% of the vote. Labour has also taken Transport Secretary Mark Harper's seat in the Forest of Dean. Labour's Matt Bishop ousted Harper - who was elected to parliament in 2005 - with just 278 votes. However, it's not only prominent Conservative MPs who have lost their seats: Labour's Thangam Debbonaire lost the Bristol Central constituency. Debbonaire was expected to become culture secretary under a Labour government, but her hopes were dashed after Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer won 56.6% of the constituency's vote, compared to Debbonaire's 32.6%. Meanwhile, Labour's Jonathan Ashworth, who was expected to become paymaster general in a Labour government, lost the Leicester South constituency to an independent candidate, Shockat Adam. Populist Reform UK party wins its first seat of the night Reform UK's Lee Anderson has won election in Ashfield, giving the right-wing populist group its first victory of the night.

Anderson was formerly the deputy chair of the Conservative Party, but he defected to Reform in January, criticizing Rishi Sunak's record on controlling migration.

He called Ashfield the "capital of common sense," telling people at his count: "This wonderful place which I call my home is going to have a massive say in how this country is shaped in the future. I want my country back and Ashfield can play their part in that."

Winning this seat was a key target for the right-wing party, and it will hope to add a second soon, when results are announced in Clacton, where the party's leader Nigel Farage is standing.

Reform were projected to win 13 seats in the exit poll. But the party earlier failed to pick up two seats in which the exit poll had projected them winners, suggesting it may fall short of that eye-catching overall predicted figure.

"Reports of my demise had been greatly exaggerated," Labour's Dan Jarvis joked, after winning Barnsley North despite the exit poll projecting he would lose it to Reform.

"I've watched colleagues say stupid things:" Furious backlash underway among Conservatives An angry backlash among Conservatives has begun, with senior Tory figures hitting out at the direction of the party under Rishi Sunak.

Robert Buckland, the former justice minister who was ousted by Labour in Swindon earlier this evening, launched a blistering attack on his former colleagues after becoming the first Tory to lose their seat earlier tonight.

"I'm fed up with performance art politics," Buckland told the BBC. "I've watched colleagues in the Conservative Party strike poses, write inflammatory op-eds and say stupid things they have no evidence for instead of concentrating on doing the job that they were elected to do.

"I think we've seen in this election astonishing ill-discipline within the party," he added.

And the party was attacked from the right, too.

Andrea Leadsom, a former business secretary, told the BBC the party was no longer "Conservative enough," and said voters are "sick of all this woke stuff."

It epitomizes the problem Sunak has faced throughout his premiership: an inability to appease either the left or right flanks of his party.

Sunak has flirted with populist messaging — particularly on migration — and promoted right-wing colleagues to government posts. But those decisions often ended in rows, such as with Lee Anderson and Suella Braverman, both of whom quit their roles in protest at Sunak's failure to bring down illegal migration.

Sunak has meanwhile failed to build bridges with the moderate wing of his party, with many center-right lawmakers alienated by his approach and imploring the party to compete with Labour for votes in the center ground of British politics.

Starmer has "net unfavorability ratings" despite predicted landslide for Labour, expert tells CNN Despite a predicted landslide win for the UK's Labour Party, its leader Keir Starmer may have some work to do on his favorability raings, according to one think tank director.

"We see net unfavorability ratings for Keir Starmer, even though he's going to have this massive, massive majority," Anand Menon, director of think tank UK in a Changing Europe told CNN. "Beneath this sort of happy story for Labour, there are some warning signs about levels of dissatisfaction with prevailing political trends in this country."

Menon noted that Starmer intends to "reset relations with European states and the European Union" after a tumultuous few years between the UK and EU after Brexit.

People in the UK are "disillusioned," said Menon, who is a professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London. "If you look at the polling, there's a significant majority of people saying Brexit was the wrong decision, not the right decision."

"If you do a focus group with voters, they might say Brexit has been bad, Brexit has been a failure. But if you say to them, how about we do another referendum then and go through it all again? You will get a collective eyeroll and a groan and say actually, please, let's not go through that again," he told CNN.

How Labour's "ming vase" campaign steered it to victory The Labour Party had a very good problem at the start when the election was called: How do you run a campaign that absolutely everyone expects you to win?

Keir Starmer's party had enjoyed a double-digit lead in opinion polls for the entirety of Rishi Sunak's premiership, which began in October 2022, and was guaranteed to win the election as long as it didn't rock the boat during the six-week campaign.

Labour appealed to an electorate tired of the Tories' chaotic period in government with a single-word slogan: "Change." But Starmer simultaneously followed a path that some party strategists took to calling a "ming vase" approach, metaphorically looking after a precious and delicate lead in opinion polls. The party repeated its key themes, avoided the temptation to unveil any major policy announcements, and pledged time after time that the party would keep a tight lid on public finances.

The party's manifesto was modest, pledging to revive Britain's flagging public services without a large injection of cash. That has raised eyebrows by independent watchdogs, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which said their public spending offer was "tiny, going on trivial."

But that was a calculation Labour has stuck to, as they sought to gain a reputation as a sensible, moderate party that can appeal to former Tory voters.

Starmer avoided gaffes, and didn't interrupt his opponent Rishi Sunak when he was making mistakes of his own.

And he became an increasingly difficult rival for the Conservatives to land successful attacks against. Sunak strived to convince voters that Starmer would increase taxes, make Britain less safe, and that he didn't have the stamina for the job of prime minister — but none of these charges appear to have stuck.

Labour's projected victory is a personal triumph for Keir Starmer that once seemed impossible The Labour Party's projected victory marks a historic moment in modern British political history and a huge personal triumph for Keir Starmer, the Labour leader who is set to become the country's next prime minister.

The UK broadcasters' exit poll suggests Labour will have a parliamentary majority of 170, returning the party to office for the first time since it lost the 2010 election to the Conservatives, who have been in power ever since.

Starmer's victory is all the more remarkable considering the journey that Labour has been on since the last general election in 2019 . Then, the party suffered its worst loss in a generation under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, who stood on a hard-left platform.

A path back to credibility and even being competitive in a general election looked potentially a decade off, as the Conservatives emerged triumphant from the carnage of Brexit under the charismatic – but chaotic – leadership of Boris Johnson.

Johnson not only defeated his political rivals, but completely upended the norms of British politics. Under his leadership, his party won seats in traditional working-class Labour areas once deemed out of reach to Conservatives. For a year at least, he seemed untouchable.

It was in this context that Starmer took control of a broken Labour Party on April 4, 2020. On that day, David Lammy, one of his Labour colleagues, took him to one side and warned Starmer: "Set yourself a 10-year cycle. You might just lose the next election, and then you can go again."

According to Lammy, Starmer smiled and said "No, I can do this in five."

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How each party has fared in the exit poll is projected to win 410 seats, and a massive majority of 170 seats. This would fall just short of the party's best-ever result, in 1997, when Tony Blair's Labour won 418 seats, a majority of 179. The result is in line with what pollsters had projected for Labour, which has enjoyed a huge lead in public opinion for years and had held onto that advantage throughout the campaign.

For the , the result is calamitous. The party, which has earned a reputation over the decades as a ruthless election winner, is projected to win just suffer its worst result since its modern iteration was formed in the 1830s. It is an overwhelming rejection of a ruling party by the British electorate, which has dumped the party from government.

The centrist Liberal Democrats will be pleased with their result, which puts them on course to return as the UK's third-largest party. The group has suffered since it joined the Tories in a coalition government between 2010 and 2015, but voters have seemingly forgiven them for that stint.

Scottish National Party, a pro-independence group that has dominated politics in Scotland for a generation, will be devastated with the forecast. It signals that the Labour Party has regained its historic strength in Scotland and represents a setback for the Scottish independence movement.

Reform UK, the right-wing populist group led by Nigel Farage, has been forecast to win more seats that most pollsters expected. Farage has hammered the Conservatives on their failure to bring down legal and illegal migration, and had been expected to win the seat where he was standing in Clacton, east of London.

Keir Starmer thanks voters and campaigners, as exit poll puts him on the cusp of power Labour leader Keir Starmer has thanked campaigners and voters, but he hasn't commented yet on the results of the exit poll that forecast him a huge majority.

Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader, said the exit poll numbers were "encouraging."

"Keir Starmer has done a tremendous job of transforming the Labour Party and putting forward a program for government that I'm hopeful that people have got behind," she told BBC immediately after the poll numbers dropped.

Rayner said it would "be an absolute honor and a privilege to be reelected," but added, "I'm not counting my chickens until we've got those results coming in."

See the full exit poll results Here's the full seat breakdown from the exit poll just released.

It's a huge return for the Labour Party, a monumental collapse for the Conservatives just five years after they won a landslide election victory, and impressive showings for the centrist Liberal Democrats and the right-wing populist party Reform UK.

Labour: 410 seats Conservatives: 131 Liberal Democrats: 61 Reform UK: 13 Scottish National Party: 10 Others: 25 Labour will win 410 seats, exit poll projects, enough for a huge parliamentary majority Labour will win 410 seats, according to the major exit poll just released. That will hand Keir Starmer a massive parliamentary majority of 170 seats, just shy of the party's greatest-ever result.

The Conservatives drop to just 131 seats, a stunning collapse by a governing party, according to the poll.

The Liberal Democrats will return as the third largest party, with 61 seats.

Read the full story here.

BREAKING: UK's center-left Labour Party will win general election in a landslide, exit poll projects The center-left Labour Party will win Britain's general election by a landslide, according to a major exit poll, ending a 14-year era of Conservative rule in decisive fashion and putting its leader Keir Starmer on course to become prime minister in the coming hours.

This is a breaking news story. More details soon...

We're minutes away from the exit poll Get ready: the exit poll for Britain's general election will be released in 10 minutes.

This is a huge poll, conducted today at polling stations across the country, that forecasts the number of seats each party has won.

It's historically an accurate picture of the how the election went, and will set up the narrative of the evening.