About Last Night: Labour Landslide in UK Elections

Historically speaking, the Tories should really not go to battle on the 4th of July, and on this 4th of July Labour whipped the Conservatives decisively.

The Independent:

Sir Keir Starmer has said the country needs a “big reset” as he delivered his first official speech as prime minister after a historic Labour landslide win.

Speaking outside No 10 after formally accepting King Charles’ request to form a government, he said: “Changing a country is not like flicking a switch. The world is now a more volatile place. This will take a while, but have no doubt that the work of change begins immediately.”

His address comes as Labour emerges from the general election with one of the biggest parliamentary majorities in history.

The party has won 412 seats, representing a majority of 176, with the last couple of results still to come in.

Earlier, Rishi Sunak apologised to the country as he left Downing Street and resigned as both prime minister and party leader this morning.

The Conservatives have secured just 121 seats, down from 365 five years ago. Liz Truss, Penny Mordaunt and Jacob Rees-Mogg are among a host of senior Tories to have lost their seats.

The Liberal Democrats have won 71 seats. Nigel Farage has won a seat in parliament at the eighth attempt, with his Reform UK party triumphing in four constituencies. The Green Party has also picked up four sears, the SNP nine and Plaid Cymru four.

As the smoke clears on Labours landslide victor some big names are moving around. Rishi Sunak resigned as Conservative Party Leader and as prime minister, though he managed to retain his seat. Penny Mordaunt, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Grant Shapps and Liz Truss weren’t even that lucky and find themselves out of parliament all together. The Liberal Democrats set a personal best by racking up 71 seats, and look to be lead by Sir Ed Davey who will be getting PM question time now. On his eighth try Nigel Farage finally got himself into the Commons, along with Richard Tice and 2 other constituencies for the Reform Party. The Greens got on the board with four seats.

The only folks having a worse night than the Tories might have been the Scottish National Party. Dominating Scottish politics for the last decade, the SNP sagged under leadership changes and scandals of late and the voters punished them for it:

The Guardian:

The general election result is a catastrophe for John Swinney and the Scottish National party, which has dominated Scottish politics for a decade. Now it has experienced a comprehensive defeat.

A decade on from the independence referendum, the SNP has been swept aside by a resurgent Labour across central and western Scotland – to a far greater degree than any opinion poll predicted.

On the eve of the election, Swinney had insisted the race in Scotland was too close to call. Unlike Labour’s certain victory across England, he said, the SNP was in a nip and tuck race with Labour in Scotland.

In the event, the SNP has been humiliated, losing three-quarters of its Westminster seats, down by at least 38. Many of its voters stayed at home to register discontent at the party’s failure to deliver a second independence referendum or their disillusionment with the series of scandals hitting it at Holyrood, its policy failures and its divisions over gender recognition.

Others who backed the SNP at previous elections swung behind Keir Starmer’s message about kicking the Conservatives out of power, presumably impressed, too, by Labour’s newfound discipline and message coherence.

Those attributes were once key to the SNP’s surge to power under Alex Salmond, and then Nicola Sturgeon. But over the past three years, its voters have lost faith in the independence message. A significant minority now no longer decide how to vote based purely on their constitutional preferences.