Tories reeling from ‘catastrophic’ election poll forecast

The Conservatives are reeling from a catastrophic night in which more than half a dozen cabinet ministers have lost their seats and the party is on course for its worst election result since it was founded.

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, and Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, were among the eight cabinet ministers unseated by opposition candidates.

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, David TC Davies, the Welsh secretary, and Mark Harper, the transport secretary, also lost their seats.

The former prime minister Liz Truss and her former deputy Thérèse Coffey were two more high-profile Conservative casualties.

The Tories were forecast to lose 241 seats in total while Labour wins a massive 170-seat majority, according to the exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky.

Rishi Sunak conceded defeat nationally in a speech in his constituency, saying the British public had delivered “a sobering verdict”.

“The Labour party has won this general election and I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory,” the prime minister said. “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight. There is much to learn and reflect on and I take responsibility for the loss.”

Sunak is expected to resign as Conservative leader and there is likely to be a battle among remaining Tories for his successor; James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch, Victoria Atkins, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Jeremy Hunt are some of the potential contenders.

The losses have narrowed the field of potential Tory leaders vying to replace Sunak. Mordaunt and Shapps were both said to be preparing bids.

Hunt was one of many senior Tories re-elected with severely depleted majorities. The chancellor clung on to his Godalming and Ash seat by just 891 votes in the face of a big challenge from the Liberal Democrats. Hunt said the results nationally were a “bitter pill to swallow”.

Richard Holden, the Tory chairman, won Basildon and Billericay by just 20 votes over Labour after a recount. He had faced heavy criticism from his own side after he was selected in the hitherto safe Tory seat at the last minute, 300 miles from his former constituency.

Badenoch, the business secretary and potential Tory leadership candidate, won Essex North West by just 2,610 votes, down from a majority of 27,594 in her former seat of Saffron Walden.

Senior Tory figures who were ousted included Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister; Victoria Prentis, the attorney general; Simon Hart, the chief whip; Simon Clarke, the former business secretary; Liam Fox, the former trade secretary; and Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary.

Related: UK general election results 2024: live tracker

Tory grandees and candidates said the results so far were an “incredible rejection” of their party that called for major change. The former party leader William Hague said it was a “catastrophic” night.

Some grandees called for the Conservative party to swing to the right in the wake of the results and even suggested it could work with Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK party, which won at least four seats and came second in a host of constituencies.

The former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said the Conservative party “took its core vote for granted” and that it had been wrong for Tory MPs to oust Boris Johnson when he had been elected by the country. “Failing to deliver on Conservative core principles did us a lot of harm,” he told the BBC.

Asked whether he thought the Tories should have sought to join forces with Farage, Rees-Mogg said: “We are where we are and the disaster doesn’t seem to have been averted. You’ll have to ask Nigel what his plans are. I think he looks for and seeks a realignment of the right in British politics, and it will be interesting to see whether he can achieve that.”

In her speech after losing her seat in Portsmouth North, Mordaunt cautioned against a move to the right, saying: “Our renewal as a party of a country will not be achieved by us by talking to an ever smaller slice of ourselves, but by being guided by the people of this country”.

Other senior figures argued that the Conservatives had to reclaim the centre ground. The former chancellor George Osborne said working with Reform would be a “disastrous route to go down”.

He added: “If this [the exit poll] is right, there will be Reform MPs and there will be a huge conversation and argument inside the Conservative party, which is if we could merge with Reform, and then we can come back … I think that’s a disastrous route for the Tories to go down, but it is going to be the conversation.”

Jo Johnson, the Tory peer and universities minister, told the BBC it was a mistake for the Conservatives to try to be “Reform lite”.

Speaking in Swindon after his defeat, Buckland warned Conservative colleagues that a lurch to the right “would be a disastrous mistake and it would send us into the abyss and gift Labour government for many years”.

Buckland launched an attack on prospective Tory leadership contenders, telling the BBC: “I’ve watched colleagues in the Conservative party strike poses, write inflammatory op-eds, and say stupid things they know they have no evidence for, instead of concentrating on doing the job. I’m fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position.

“The Conservatives are facing electoral Armageddon. And it’s going to be like a group of bald men fighting over a comb.”