Labour to win general election as exit poll predicts landslide victory for Keir Starmer and Tory hammering

Keir Starmer is heading for Downing Street after an exit poll showed Labour will win a historic landslide victory over the Tories.

The Labour leader will become Prime Minister after his party was predicted to secure a massive 170 majority.

The poll predicted the annihilation of the Tories and a catastrophic night for the SNP, with John Swinney’s party falling from 48 seats to 10.

Starmer said: “To everyone who has campaigned for Labour in this election, to everyone who voted for us and put their trust in our changed Labour Party – thank you.”

According to the poll, Labour will win 410 seats while the Tories will fall 131.

The Lib Dems are in line to win 61 seats and Reform are predicted to secure 13 MPs.

Former SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reacted to the collapse of the SNP vote:

“This is not a good night for the SNP on those numbers.”

“This is at the grimmer end of the expectations for the SNP if the exit poll is right.”

She added: “There will be a lot of questions that need to be asked as we come out of it.”

Former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson called the projected election result a “massacre” for the Conservative Party.

But she said the word coming out of Conservative central office earlier was that the Tories could be below three figures in terms of seats.

She: “So actually 131 – while there is no dressing it up, this is a massacre – they’ve actually, if this is right, pulled a few back from where they thought they were.”

Starmer, 61, is expected to go to Buckingham Palace at lunchtime on Friday to be formally appointed Prime Minister by the King.

Later, he will appoint key ministers including Rachel Reeves, who will become the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer in history, and Angela Rayner, who will be Deputy Prime Minister.

Sunak will announce he is quitting as Tory leader, triggering weeks of bitter infighting as the party tears itself apart over who should replace him.

MPs will return to Westminster on Tuesday and begin the process of swearing in, before the King formally opens Parliament on July 17.

The government is expected to make early announcements on housebuilding before the Commons rises for a shortened summer break at the end of the month.

The new Prime Minister will fly to Washington DC on Tuesday where he will meet fellow world leaders including US President Joe Biden at a summit marking the 75th anniversary of Nato.

Starmer is also expected to make one of his first foreign trips to Kyiv to demonstrate Britain’s continued commitment to Ukraine.

Since taking over as party leader in April 2020, Starmer has transformed Labour.

The former Director of Public Prosecutions has pledged to get on with the job of fixing Britain as soon as he enters Downing Street.

He is promising to revive the economy, put 6,500 more teachers in schools and bring down NHS waiting lists by putting on millions of extra hospital appointments.

Labour has also vowed to bring down household bills with GB Energy and restore control of the country’s borders.

Starmer’s party last swept to power in 1997 when Tony Blair got 418 seats in his historic landslide victory.

Labour’s national campaign chief Pat McFadden said: “Keir Starmer’s transformation of the Labour Party has been remarkable.

“He has put country before party and has transformed Labour from a party focused on itself to one back in the service of the British public. We have campaigned as a changed Labour Party, ready to change Britain.”

The dramatic exit poll, which landed after voting closed at 10pm, followed a disastrous six week campaign for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

He was widely mocked for announcing the election in the pouring rain and pilloried for leaving a D-Day event early.

Sunak also faced a nightmare when nemesis Nigel Farage said he would stand for the Reform party, splitting the right-wing vote.

The Tories effectively gave up any hope of winning the election half-way through the campaign.

Senior party figures stopped talking about hanging on to power and instead warned voters about a Labour super-majority.

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross also announced his decision to quit days into the campaign.

The result ends fourteen years of Tory Government spanning the premierships of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak.

The past decade has witnessed referenda on independence and Brexit, as well as a pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

Labour lost four elections in those years but the party made huge progress under Starmer.

The Daily Record was the first Scottish newspaper to endorse Labour during the election.

We urged Scots to back Starmer on the grounds that only Labour could defeat the Conservatives.

Individual results will pour in during the early hours of Friday morning and a final result is expected on the same day.

Starmer’s massive win is remarkable as Labour needed a bigger swing than Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide to win a majority.

This was caused by changes in constituency boundaries.

Starmer had to achieve a swing of 12.7% from the Tories to become PM – larger than the 10.2% swing that brought Labour to power in 1997.

Boundary changes left Sunak defending a notional majority of 94, compared with the 80-seat margin secured by Boris Johnson in 2019.

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