British election live

Live commentary on counting for the British general election.

10:05am Wednesday December 18: A post-election YouGov poll of over 40,000 respondents has the startling finding that low-income people voted Tory by greater margins than high-income people.  The Tories won the middle class (ABC1) by 43-33 and the working class (C2DE) by 48-33 (44-40 and 44-42 respectively in 2017).  The Tories won those with the lowest educational attainment by 58-25 (55-33 in 2017).  Labour won those with the highest educational attainment 43-29 (49-32 in 2017).

3:25pm Saturday: Conversation article up.  I believe a major cause for the bad Labour loss was its Brexit policy, but another important difference from 2017 was real wage growth: -0.5% before the 2017 election vs +1.7% in the latest available data.  People are only willing to vote for left-wing policies if they are not doing well financially.  There’s also US politics stuff in that article.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at The University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

7:50am Saturday: The Conservatives HELD St Ives overnight with an increased majority over the Lib Dems.  Final seat numbers are 365 Tories (up 47), 203 Labour (down 59), 48 SNP (up 13) and 11 Lib Dems (down one).  I will have a write-up for The Conversation later today.

7:10pm Most polls had the Tory lead over Labour at nine to 12 points; the final result will be 11.5 points, so most polls were about right.  Survation, Ipsos, Opinium and Kantar had the Tory lead at either 11 or 12 points, and are the best pollsters.  The worst were ComRes (just a five point lead) and ICM (six points).

7:03pm How the Britain Elects Poll Tracker compares to the actual results excluding Northern Ireland.  William Bowe has said the two majors were too high in the polls, but most UK polls exclude Northern Ireland.

6:13pm: In Northern Ireland, the DUP won eight of the 18 seats (down two), Sinn Fein seven (no change), the Social Democratic Labour Party two and the Alliance Party one.  Vote shares were 30.6% DUP, 22.8% Sinn Fein, 16.8% Alliance and 14.9% SDLP.  So the Alliance got only one seat on 17% vote.

5:57pm: Final Scotland results: SNP 48 of 59 seats (up 13), Tories six (down seven), Lib Dems four (no change), Labour one (down six).  Vote shares: SNP 45.0% (up 8.1%), Tories 25.1% (down 3.5%), Labour 18.6% (down 8.5%) and Lib Dems 9.5% (up 2.8%).

4:52pm: With 13 seats to go, the Tories have 355 seats, Labour 202, the SNP 48 and the Lib Dems ten.

4:33pm: Another ex-Tory gets pummelled

4:24pm Labour has got to 200 seats with 37 left for the whole UK.

4:20pm: With all 40 Welsh seats declared, Labour won 22 (down six), the Tories 14 (up six) and Plaid Cymru four (no change).  Vote shares were 40.9% Labour (down 8.0%) and 36.9% Tories (up 2.5%).

4:16pm: With 41 seats still to be declared, the Tories have passed the majority mark (326 seats), and are now up to 335 seats.

4:11pm: Another not-great tactical voting, with the Tories HOLDING Finchley with 44%, the Lib Dems second with 32% and Labour 3rd with 24%.

3:36pm Tories GAIN Kensington from Labour by just 0.3% because the Lib Dems took 21%.  Additional note: Some polls in this seat put the Lib Dems ahead of Labour, so tactical voting plans were confused.

3:22pm: Ex-Tory Dominic Grieve LOSES his seat to the Tories.

3:12pm: In Leave seats, Labour lost votes directly to the Tories and Brexit party.  In Remain seats, the Lib Dems often split part of the vote, and anyway there aren’t enough Remain seats in the UK.

3:09pm With 424 of 650 seats declared, the Tories have 220 (up 32), Labour 146 (down 44), the SNP 35 (up 12) and the Lib Dems seven (no change).  The Tories have a 42.6% to 33.5% lead over Labour with 10.7% for the Lib Dems.  On a matched seat basis, Labour is down 8.3%.

2:54pm: Lib Dems miss out in Wimbledon; Labour had too many votes.

2:52pm Socialist Laura Pidcock LOSES her seat

2:50pm: Jo Swinson LOSES her seat to the SNP

2:47pm: Boris Johnson easily HOLDS his seat.

2:46pm: Really UGLY result for Labour in Bassetlaw

2:41pm: Labour loses Tony Blair’s old seat of Sedgefield.

2:35pm: Corbyn easily holds Islington N, but has announced he will resign as Labour leader.

2:32pm: Lib Dems GAIN a seat from SNP in Scotland

2:29pm: Overall, with 281 of 650 seats declared, the Tories have 140 seats (up 25), Labour 104 (down 31), the SNP 20 (up seven) and the Lib Dems five (down one).  Labour’s vote is down 8.1%, with the Tory vote up 1.8%.

2:20pm: In Wales, Labour has lost five seats to the Tories after 27 of 40 declared.  Labour’s vote is down 9.6% with the Tories up 3.6% and Brexit taking 6.6%.

2:16pm Scottish results so far are SNP all 17 seats declared, with the Tories and Labour losing three seats each.

2:06pm: Here’s one that could have gone to a non-Tory with preferential voting.

1:59pm: With 175 of 650 seats in, Labour has lost a net 19 seats, the Tories are up 15 and the SNP up four.

1:45pm: Labour HOLD Hartlepool after Tories and Brexit party split the Leave vote.  I think Labour is doing better than they would under preferential voting.

1:41pm: A narrow Lib Dem HOLD vs the Tories

1:36pm: Labour HOLDS Canterbury, the seat where the original Lib Dem withdrew, only to be replaced by another Lib Dem.

1:29pm: After 96 of 650 seats, the BBC has Labour down 8.8% in the same seats from 2017, but only 1.6% has gone to the Conservatives.  Labour has lost eight net seats, with the Conservatives up six.

12:55pm: An against the run of play result: Labour GAIN Putney from Conservative; that’s a London seat.

12:51pm Labour suffers the humiliation of losing its deposit in Bracknell.

12:46pm Gateshead illustrates how bad it would be for Labour if not for the Brexit party standing in most seats it currently holds.

12:43pm: On the BBC’s results page, Labour’s vote is down 11.4% after 20 of 650 seats.  The only good news for Labour is that only 2.7% of that drop has gone to the Conservatives, with 5.5% going to the Brexit party.

12:33pm: Conservatives GAIN Darlington and Workington from Labour.

12:26pm Labour’s big problem with the Leave vote: although Leave only won the Brexit referendum by 52-48, it carried 64% of seats in Great Britain (ie excluding Northern Ireland).  The Leave vote was far more efficiently distributed than the Remain vote, which clustered in the big cities.

This implies that an explicitly pro-Remain Labour leader would not have performed any better than Corbyn.  This election is the realignment around Leave/Remain that was expected in 2017, but which Corbyn thwarted with his pro-Brexit positioning.

12:12pm: Almost a 10% swing from Labour to Con in Nuneaton gives Con a far bigger majority.

12:08pm Tory vote down 6% in S Shields, with Labour down 16%, thanks to an independent and Brexit party candidate.

12:01pm

11:27am: Direct swing of 5% from Labour to Con gives Con a much bigger majority in N Swindon.

11:16am: Sedgefield was Tony Blair’s old seat, so would be a huge triumph for the Conservatives.

10:36am: Conservatives GAIN Blyth Valley from Labour after 15% crash in Labour’s vote.  Additional note: And preferential voting wouldn’t have helped Labour given 8% for the Brexit party.

10:30am First result in, Labour HOLD, but with a 7% swing against.

10:21am: Normally we’d have some results by now, but close contests in former Labour strongholds have slowed down the count in those seats.

10:08am: Vote shares according to The Exit Poll

9:39am: Nate Silver

9:30am: Antony Green

9:03am: The Exit Poll has a big win for the Conservatives

7:55am: As well as the UK, there is an electoral development in Israel.  A new election has been called for March 2, 2020, after no government could be formed after the September election.  It will be the third Israeli election within a year.  Early polling suggests the left-leaning Blue & White is ahead of the right-wing Likud, but do not have enough allies to form a government.

4am (AEDT). Adrian Beaumont will be taking care of business on the live commentary front, but this here is your editor reporting in the small hours to kick off proceedings. If you’re a Crikey subscriber, you can you enjoy my election eve account of the campaign horse race here. Here is one last update of my poll tracker, which tells the same story as before: the Conservatives had already devoured the Brexit Party before the campaign began, while Labour’s cannibalising of the Liberal Democrats has been a slower process that has persisted through to the end of the campaign. With the addition of seven last polls, the final scores are Conservative 42.9% (+0.2% compared with the last run, +0.5% on the 2017 result), Labour 33.7% (steady and -6.3%) and Liberal Democrats 11.9% (-0.4% and +4.5%).

For your convenience, here is a repeat of Adrian’s timeline of how things are likely to unfold, Australian time.

9am: Polls close and The Exit Poll is released (intentional capitalisation). In the last three elections, The Exit Poll has given seat results which greatly disagreed with pre-election polls and expectations. In all three cases, The Exit Poll was far closer to the mark than pre-election polls. Only seat counts are given, not vote shares.

11am: According to this article about the 2017 election, only three of 650 declarations are expected by this time.

1pm-3pm: These two hours should be the heaviest for declarations.  Initial results will be biased to Labour as the Conservative heartland regional seats take longer to gather their votes. The key is to watch the changes in vote share, and whether seats are being gained or lost.

6pm: Only a few seats will not be declared by this time. Very close seats can take longer to declare owing to recounts. If there’s snow on the roads, results will be delayed.

490 comments on “British election live”

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  1. Pushing hard to the left like Corbyn did is risky, and he lost, but it does make it easy for whoever follows him to be seen as moderate, and take the middle ground.
    The alternative is go the US Democrats way and keep capitulating the right which results in two right wing parties.

  2. Very good news:

    Jo (a different accent every day) Swinson will lose her seat.

    But but but she has forbidden Scots to have a vote under any circumstances.

  3. Pound Sterling now at its highest point against the Dollar in 12 months.

    This Brexit thing is terrible. Apparently .

    Those markets and the traders in them have never ever been wrong, happiness and equality is what they deliver ….

  4. I don’t know Labour policies but how radically left wing are they, really?

    The SNP has policies to return all public services to public ownership. Hardly left wing in an EU context.

  5. We Want Paul – the NHS is not failing and is not going to turn into a US style system. No one except maybe a mentally ill recluse or extreme drug addict will starve to death. Obesity is the biggest health problem of the poor.

  6. Shouldn’t we have had results from a constituency or two by now? You know, those ones that race to be the first to report?

  7. Bucephalus I guess you are going to tell me that austerity didn’t kill some of the UK most vunerable in a deliberately cruel and evil process, hell you probably think robodebt was totally cool and good.

  8. Pound Sterling now at its highest point against the Dollar in 12 months.

    This Brexit thing is terrible. Apparently .

    Another 2c, and it will be back where it was after the referendum result.

  9. Davidwh @ #62 Friday, December 13th, 2019 – 7:58 am

    Shouldn’t we wait for the real results before all the doom and gloom?

    It was doom and gloom before the election and it was doom and gloom during the election (which Labour and the LDs should never have agreed to) so why should we wait for confirmation before we dissect the bleeding obvious, i.e. it’s 5 more years of doom and gloom.

  10. Swamprat at 9:51am:

    I don’t know Labour policies but how radically left wing are they, really?

    The SNP has policies to return all public services to public ownership. Hardly left wing in an EU context.

    I was asking myself the same question, so I looked it up: they’re so hard left that they didn’t even propose nationalising the banks, not even /one/ bank to give a public banking option. In fact, their policies would be mostly fairly centrist in the context of France or Germany, with a few wrinkles. In some ways they’re not even as hard left as Bernie Sanders.

  11. The twitterverse sobs in the dark!

    Titania McGrath
    @TitaniaMcGrath
    ·
    23m
    This General Election was advisory.

    I demand a People’s General Election.

  12. Lol! Poms doing the brexit self harm thing….again. Sad, but they gotta own it.

    Anyone know where this puts the date for the actual brexit??

  13. bug, of course the temptation for labour will be to return to Blairism. But I actually think this is an opportunity for the left. Corbyn legacy will be that he laid the groundwork, he made socialism mainstream again. And if labour are brave enough to choose another socialist leader with another socialist manifesto, they will have a clear run against what will undoubtedly be a very unpopular government in 5 years time, and without the brexit distraction.

    Clear majorities can be a poisoned challice – as John Howard learned after 2004. I have every confidence that in their hubris, Boris and the tories will overreach like Howard did and get smashed next election.

  14. Labour wanted this election, that is why Corbyn keep saying no to a Brexit deal, when he wanted a Brexit.

    Corbyn has shown all he cares about is power and he would chance a ‘no deal’ Brexit if it mean a chance for power. This shows us that most of England do not care for this type of politician

  15. The positives of such a defeat is it does force a full clean out. There are no excuses for what has happened.
    It looks like Labour is going to be out of power for 20 years now, longer than ever before.

  16. Himi

    Thanks. I thought so.

    It seems it was not Labour’s policies.

    It must have been a mix of Brexit, Corbyn, and the undoubted appeal of de pfeffel to Workington Man.

  17. dovif @ #71 Friday, December 13th, 2019 – 8:06 am

    Labour wanted this election, that is why Corbyn keep saying no to a Brexit deal, when he wanted a Brexit.

    Corbyn has shown all he cares about is power and he would chance a ‘no deal’ Brexit if it mean a chance for power. This shows us that most of England do not care for this type of politician

    This is what shits me about people like Corbyn and his Corbynistas.
    They’re too busy being ideologically pure.
    Too busy calling people Blairites.
    Too busy ignoring anti-semitism.
    Too busy playing politics on Brexit and not taking a stand.

    How about taking the time to win power first.
    How about taking the time to represent the plurality of your constituency.
    How about taking the time to fix up the rigging of your party by momentum.

  18. mark perkins
    @thatmarkperkins
    ·
    28m
    There’s a harsh and salutary lesson, one learned by every generation, that a few thousand people singing a politicians name whilst ripped off your tits in a Somerset field, is not a barometer of the overall national mood.

  19. “Corbyn legacy will be that he laid the groundwork, he made socialism mainstream again.”

    TBH, I think the opposite. He’s made the policies look insane. Anytime anyone brings them up again, they’ll just point to this result.

    He’s done more harm to the left than I would have guessed.

  20. I think the issue this election has turned on is that Labor sat on the fence over Brexit…which was the main issue.

    If its as thumping a loss as it seems then Labor should/will dump Corbyn, go quiet for a while and focus on policy positioning. Let the impending disaster that is Brexit unfold as it will. Consequences of Brexit will now ALL be laid on the Tories (quite properly) as they have a big majority.

    A period of pain for the Brits to come, and there will be people genuinely hurt, but all self inflicted by the idiots who want Brexit.

    Will be interesting to see how Brexit actually goes ahead. Will winning this election mean that some in the Tories will push for a “better” deal with the EU?? 🙂

  21. “Will be interesting to see how Brexit actually goes ahead”

    My guess – it won’t. Johnson hasn’t ever delivered on anything else, can’t see why need start now.

    They’ll just blame the EU.

  22. I argue that Brexit was the deciding factor in this election. Therefore; Labour Party has probably paid the price, for being ambiguous on the issue of Brexit. While the Conservatives have profited electorally from having an unambiguous stance on Brexit. Despite Boris Johnson is utterly unfit to be an Member of Parliament, let alone Prime Minister.

    I would argue that exactly same thing happened to our Labor Party at the May federal election, for being ambiguous on the issue of the fate of the fossil fuels industry.

  23. “My guess – it won’t. ”

    Oh come on blob!!! You reckon that the doGs above have that kind of humor in play?? 🙂 They are just not that good to the world.

  24. Still no actual results. Are those schoolgirls who are trained to run as fast as possible carrying the ballot boxes on strike because of the cold?

  25. Blobbit, I’ll go out on a limb and say that labour will lose in spite of their (very popular) socialist agenda – not because of it.

    At the end of the day, people just wanted the brexit nightmare to end – and Boris was seen as the best avenue for that.

  26. “I would argue….”

    You really think there are people who would have voted for a Remain party who though Labour weren’t remain enough, so they voted Tory?

  27. “I would argue that exactly same thing happened to our Labor Party at the May federal election, for being ambiguous on the issue of the fate of the fossil fuels industry.”

    I think the Australian situation had more factors significantly in play so not “exactly” the same, but definitely similar.

    I see results like this and thank whatever that we have preferential voting.

  28. “My guess – it won’t.”

    With respect, thats laughable.

    Brexit happening is now the most certain thing in British politics

  29. Uh, oh. I just read Mr. Beaumont’s post at 10:21. If those seats that normally report in the first 3/4 of an hour are now so close it’s slowing down the count, that doesn’t look good.

  30. Early days, but i just read on a blog, be wonderful if it comes to pass, that one of the four non-SNP seats in Scotland is Kirkcaldy and Crowdanbeath where one Neale Hanvey is likely to win. He is actually the SNP candidate who was “dis-owned” by the party.

    It was a bit of “woke” nonsense. I do so hope he wins.

    If accurate that would make it effectively 56 SNP!

    Though this is only a poll, so it is as yet premature to gloat.

  31. “Brexit happening is now the most certain thing in British politics”

    Never underestimate the capacity of the RWFW’s to over-reach and Fwark things up. 🙂

  32. imacca @ #84 Friday, December 13th, 2019 – 8:23 am

    “I would argue that exactly same thing happened to our Labor Party at the May federal election, for being ambiguous on the issue of the fate of the fossil fuels industry.”

    I think the Australian situation had more factors significantly in play so not “exactly” the same, but definitely similar.

    I see results like this and thank whatever that we have preferential voting.

    It was similar in that Shorten was unpopular. Even against Morrison and his incompetent government.
    Shorten lived in a bubble with playing towards the inner-city crowd calling it the climate election.
    With Palaszczuk being for Adani and Shorten slapping her down the next day voters in regional QLD didn’t know where the ALP stood.
    The ALP seemed more concerned about environment policy and the twitter-sphere than economic development of disadvantaged regions.

    There’s enough parallels here.

  33. “With respect, thats laughable.

    Brexit happening is now the most certain thing in British politics”

    Yeah, fair enough – I should have put a (grim) smilie there.

    Though I wonder if Johnson will go back to the EU to try to renegotiate the WA on the strength of this win. If he did, I would expect the EU to give that fairly short shrift.

  34. Blyth Valley (Northumberland) goes Conservative for the first time since its creation in 1950. This is going to be an ugly night for Labour supporters.

  35. Apparently tories didn’t even have Blyth Valley on their hit list.

    I have a feeling the exit polls were too generous to labour.

  36. Swinson losing her seat is well deserved.

    Lab losing 70 seats to this government, there is no other interpretation available than utter disaster fail.

    I’m not saying that Scotland is going to secede next week, but as this Brexit manifests then both Scotland and N Ireland will suffer horribly and that will inevitably lead to self-determination calls.

    A comprehensive victory to the Rees-Mogg ERG cabal.

  37. WeWantPaul:

    The US can regain the mantle in 2020 with a second Trump term but a democratic controlled house and senate.

    The Democrats are far more likely to win the Presidency than control of the Senate (and that’s not because they’re a shoe-in for the Presidency – it’s because the electoral math in the Senate is much worse for them).

    The Senate is the real centre of power in the US system now anyway.

  38. Ugly night for us Irish citizens watching also. Boris can now throw the republic to the wolves. My guess is a no deal Brexit by end of Jan 2020, and Ireland will get a hard border, or will have to leave the EU to avoid the hard border.

    Johnson is a proponent, along with Steve Bannon, of “Disaster Capitalism”. Cause maximum disruption politically, break-up political blocs like the EU, keep throwing dead cats on the table so that voters cannot keep up: This leads to the best conditions for unfettered capitalism – Any Rand’s dream come true.

  39. Swamprat,

    How do you see Scottish Independence playing out? I am totally on your side in this, but I think Boris would send the tanks in before he would allow a second referendum. Or more likely, get Rupert on the case until the SNP is thoroughly discredited.

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