Boris Johnson is on course to secure a Tory majority in the Commons, according to the exit poll for the General Election.

  • Tories - 8
  • Labour - 12
  • SNP - 1
  • Lib Dems -
  • Others -

The evidence of the swing to the Conservatives could be seen in the second seat to be declared with the party taking Blyth Valley from Labour for the first time in 69 years.

General Election 2019 exit poll
(PA Graphics)

2.05am

Laura Parker, the national co-ordinator of Labour campaign group Momentum, said: “Obviously we need to wait for the full results but it looks like Brexit dominated.

“It’s unquestionable that Labour’s policies are popular. Every poll shows it, and there is absolutely no appetite to go back to the centrist policies of old. But in this election we were squeezed by Brexit and it was the defining issue.”

1.58am

General Election 2019
All hands to the count in Chipping Barnet, Finchley and Golders Green (Jacob King/PA)

1.53am

RESULT: Labour has won Putney from the Tories. The seat had been represented by Justine Greening who was Education Secretary under Theresa May, but had the Tory whip removed over her Brexit views and chose not to re-run.

1.50am

Former speaker John Bercow has reignited his rift with Andrea Leadsom, accusing her of suffering “from the rather material disadvantage of being wrong”.

Mr Bercow added that the former leader of the House “didn’t have a strong grasp of parliamentary procedure”.

He also said that he has never bullied anyone in his life, and revealed that he would accept a peerage if it was offered to him.

Speaking on Sky News, Mr Bercow addressed criticism that he did not remain impartial in his role when overseeing Brexit-related business.

Mr Bercow said: “My job was to stand up for Parliament. On the issue of Brexit, the truth of the matter is, if you look back, the consistent thread in my speakership was that I stood up for the rights of minorities to be heard.

“When Brexiteers were in the minority on the Conservative side, in fact, when the word Brexiteer hadn’t even been coined, they were known as Eurosceptics, I consistently gave them their head.”

“And as for Andrea Leadsom, well Andrea was perfectly entitled to her views, she didn’t have a very strong grasp of parliamentary procedure, and she was entitled to her opinion, but she suffered from the rather material disadvantage of being wrong.”

1.45am

1.40am

The new Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle has held his Chorley seat with 67.30% of the vote)

Traditionally the Speaker stands unopposed, and in the vote he faced only a Green candidate and an Independent, although that independent Mark Brexit-Smith got 23% of the vote in the Lancashire seat.

1.26am

Arron Banks, the co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign, said it was “job done” after Tory Remainer MPs were “purged” from the party.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “This has always been about pressure. What we’ve tried to do is return the Conservative party to its core roots which I think we have done.”

He said: “Let’s say 40 or so strong Remainers in parliament, 30 are gone.”

Mr Banks was sitting in the studio next to former Liberal Democrat MP Heidi Allen, who quit the Tories over Brexit, who chipped in and said the word “purged”.

Mr Banks agreed and said: “Purged, I would say,” adding: “We set out to make the Conservative party conservative again and I think it’s job done. Well done to Boris.”

1.23am

Outgoing Labour MP for Vauxhall Kate Hoey, who campaigned for Leave in the EU referendum, tweeted:

Meanwhile, another Labour MP who has stepped down – former deputy leader Tom Watson – was asked on Channel 4 if Jeremy Corbyn had to go and he replied: “No I don’t think he has to go. I think more importantly before you have any talk of a leadership election in the Labour Party, first of all let’s find out if these exit polls are correct.

“But if they do represent a big defeat for us, we have to have a proper analysis of why this has happened.

“We’ve stood on two manifestos that are broadly similar in the last two elections. Many of the policies within them the polls told us were popular with voters. We need to find out what went wrong.”

He added: “Boris Johnson is going to rule this country for five years. The Labour Party can find some space for itself to understand what it has to do to reconnect with the millions of voters it’s lost in the last decade, otherwise it won’t have a future.”

1.20am

Ken Livingstone, the former Labour MP and Mayor of London, predicts Jeremy Corbyn will resign.

He said his friend and ally had paid the price for several aspects of his campaign, including not taking more action against anti-Semitism.

“The Jewish vote wasn’t very helpful,” Mr Livingstone told PA news agency.

“Jeremy should have tackled that issue far earlier than he did. It looks like the end for Jeremy, which is disappointing for me since I’m a close ally. I’m sure he’ll have to resign tomorrow.”

1.14am

It is now 49 days until Britain is scheduled to leave the EU – made all the more likely by the predicted Tory gains tonight.

1.06am

1.04am

Political rivals Lord Buckethead and Count Binface have clashed in the Prime Minister’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

With Boris Johnson not expected to appear in Uxbridge for some time, it was left to the fringe candidates to take centre stage as the election count got under way,

Independent Count Binface told the PA news agency: “If I get a big fat zero that would be a record.”

Comedian Jon Harvey, who plays the Count, was seen mocking Lord Buckethead – making a thumbs down behind his back, shouting “Fake news” and singing the American national anthem.

Mr Harvey previously ran as Lord Buckethead in Theresa May’s constituency in 2017, but cited “an unpleasant battle on the planet Copyright” as the reason behind the switch to Count Binface.

12.58am

Democratic Unionist Party East Antrim candidate Sammy Wilson has denied his party has been left dismayed by exit poll indications that the Conservatives will be returned with a sizeable majority.

The Democratic Unionists became kingmakers in the last Parliament when Tory governments under Theresa May and Boris Johnson relied on their 10 votes through a confidence and supply deal.

General Election 2019
DUP candidate for East Antrim Sammy Wilson as the counting continues at the Titanic exhibition centre, Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA)

Mr Wilson told the PA news agency that he was not surprised at the exit poll results, claiming Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had had a “toxic effect”.

“Obviously we’d have preferred to be in a situation we were in the last Parliament where we did have the influence and where it was fairly marginal, however for the country it probably wasn’t a great thing because no decisions could be made,” he said.

“I still wouldn’t be totally dismayed insofar as a big majority could actually mean that Boris Johnson can go in and be fairly bullish with the EU when it comes to negotiations, and if he does do that then many of the problems the current deal is going to cause Northern Ireland could disappear.”

12.53am

General Election 2019
The scene at the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh (Lesley Martin/PA)

12.48am

New European Council President Charles Michel said EU leaders would discuss the results of the election later on Friday.

He said: “We will see what will be the official results but there is a strong message.

“We will have the discussion tomorrow in the European Council, Article 50, you know that we are ready for the next steps.

“We will see if it’s possible for the British Parliament to accept the Withdrawal Agreement to take a decision, and if it is the case, we are ready for the next steps.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission, added: “Of course we have to wait for the final result, but then we will congratulate the winner of the election and show our respect to all those who have participated.

“I think we will immediately listen to the prime minister just to be reassured and we have reaffirmed what the pathway is.”

12.41am

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove is surprised his party gained Blyth Valley.

Mr Gove said he was “delighted” for Ian Levy, a mental health worker and the new Tory MP for Blyth Valley, but added: “But I’ll be honest, I didn’t necessarily expect that we would win that seat.”

Speaking on Sky News, Mr Gove added: “Well, I think it’s still too soon, we’ve only had a limited number of results, to be prepared to be confident that the exit poll is right in all its particulars, but I do think it points to the fact that Jeremy Corbyn appears to have been decisively rejected by Labour voters.”

Mr Gove added that Mr Corbyn’s “failure to honour his manifesto commitment in 2017 to get Brexit done”, has damaged Labour’s vote, and that “the more that voters saw of Corbyn and his approach both on national security and on economics, the more they felt he was not the right person to be prime minister”.

12.40am

12.37am

Police in Glasgow are investigating three cases of suspected voter fraud.

Glasgow City Council reported three cases of alleged “personation” following Thursday’s poll.

The offence occurs when a person votes as someone else.

It is understood one instance is being investigated in each of the Glasgow North, Central and South seats.

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said the authority is “co-operating with the police” on the matter.

BBC Scotland reported further possible cases of voter fraud in the Stirling and Paisley and Renfrewshire North constituencies.

12.32am

The Liberal Democrats are “quietly confident” Sarah Olney will retake Richmond Park from Conservative Zac Goldsmith.

A senior party source said: “There aren’t going to be multiple recounts and I doubt there will be any recounts at all.”

12.27am

Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller said if the exit poll is correct then the UK “will be out” of the EU and there will not be a second referendum.

Speaking to ITV, Ms Miller, a lawyer who has campaigned against the government’s Brexit strategy, said: “I don’t think there’ll be another vote. It will get passed as an Act of Parliament, it will then be ratified as an international treaty and we will be out.”

12.18am

Jon Lansman, the founder of Labour campaign group Momentum, said the decision about whether the Labour Party should replace Jeremy Corbyn as party leader doesn’t need to be taken “until the New Year”.

Mr Lansam said that Mr Corbyn has “achieved a great deal” on issues such as austerity, and that the election was “incredibly polarised because of Brexit”.

Speaking on ITV, Mr Lansam said: “I think maybe the manifesto was too long and too detailed, it’s a programme actually not for a government, but for 10 years. I think it’s a good programme, but maybe we need to have shorter, snappier manifestos.”

Mr Lansman continued: “The result is a disastrous result because millions of people in this country who are suffering from the affects of austerity are going to suffer badly.”

On whether Mr Corbyn should be replaced, he added: “I think Jeremy has to make those decisions himself. You know Jeremy has always been a reluctant leader, I don’t think he’ll overstay his welcome.

“But I think he should be able to make decisions. And I don’t think we should rush into these things. Christmas is not far away, I don’t think decisions really need to be taken about this until the New Year.”

12.15am

The joint-leader of East Dunbartonshire council has said “it is on a knife edge” whether Liberal Dem leader Jo Swinson will lose her seat to the SNP.

Andrew Polson, a Conservative councillor, said: “My gut reaction is that she might scrape through, but it’s on a knife edge.”

Mr Polson revealed that – according to his figures – Jo Swinson is polling 44% in his Bearsden South ward, which he described “strong Tory” area.

“You would really expect her to be polling 50%,” he said.

“She’s holding up in Bearsden, but the SNP have increased their vote. They’re polling 23% there, when you’d be expecting around 15%, so it’s on a knife edge.”

12.09am

General Election 2019
One of Boris Johnson’s more colourful competitors in his Uxbridge and Ruislip South seat – Count Binface – waits for the result (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

12.05am

Former Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames said the Tories winning in former Labour heartlands could “build a new Conservative majority across Britain for a generation”.

Sir Nicholas, the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, lost the Tory whip earlier this year for supporting efforts to stop a no-deal Brexit but later had it restored, however, he is not standing in the General Election.

Speaking to BBC News, he said: “I don’t think the Prime Minister is solely a Brexit prime minister, I think he is a proper one-nation Tory.

“But it’s quite clear he persuaded – in a lot of seats in the North and the Midlands, I think, and elsewhere – that the Labour Party, the Corbyn Labour Party, was not the Labour Party they knew.”

He added: “This is a big change, it is a political watershed and it will be a different party but it is no bad thing for being that.

“This could build a new Conservative majority across Britain for another generation.”

12.03am

General Election 2019
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas for the Conservatives as counting continues (Peter Byrne/PA)

11.58pm

Counting under way in Boris Johnson’s constituency

11.50pm

11.42pm

Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom – who just a few years ago came close to leading the Tory party herself – has claimed a little credit for that surprise Blyth Valley result.

Blyth Valley was ranked 85th on a list of Labour seats most vulnerable to the Tories.

11.38pm

Although some seats have already declared, it could still be a long night in some counting centres.

11.33pm

Counting under way in Esher and Walton where Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has been fighting to hold his seat.

11.31pm

RESULT: Following close behind in the race to be the first seat counted, Blyth Valley has changed from Labour to the Conservatives, with a majority of 712. This is a big shock as the seat had been held by Labour since 1950.

11.29pm

RESULT: Labour have held Newcastle Central, the first result to be announced in the 2019 General Election.

11.25pm

General Election 2019
Millions of ballot papers will be verified and counted throughout the night (Joe Giddens/PA)

11.15pm

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said he will not be “either as a temporary or a permanent” leader of the Labour Party if Jeremy Corbyn stands down.

Speaking on Sky News, he said: “The poll itself, I think it looks as though it’s Brexit-dominated, a lot of this I think was Brexit fatigue, people just wanted it over and done with and it put Labour in a very difficult position.”

He added that this was because some Labour constituencies voted to leave the European Union.

“It was always going to be difficult for us to straddle those positions,” he said, adding: “But also, it is about installing what is generally seen as the most right-wing extreme cabinet that we’ve seen in our history, and it means therefore, if they have a large majority like this, they will have, therefore, the opportunity to introduce some quite reactionary policies.

“If the electorate have decided this way, that’s democracy, you have to respect it. But I don’t think it will bring the country together, I think it will be divided still,” he said.

11.10pm

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said his decision to stand down in Tory-held seats prevented a hung parliament.

Speaking to BBC News, Mr Farage said: “I can tell you that if we had stood in every seat in the country it would have been a hung parliament.

“That would have been a disaster … I think the Liberal Democrats would have won an awful lot of seats.”

On Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal, Mr Farage said: “If the current treaty on the table with the political declaration passes unamended I can’t bring myself to support it.

“Look, I’ve spent my political career trying to get Brexit, alright. We’re going to get Brexit. Are we going to get the right one? Maybe not.”

11.05pm

General Election 2019
Ballot boxes arrive at the Guildhall in Hull for counting (Danny Lawson/PA)